LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap. Copyright No.. 

Shelf....1la n "U S 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




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SOLON DOGGETT'S 



J)OEMS. 



UNSEEN FOOTSTEPS. 



ORIGINAL DRAWINGS BY THE AUTHOR. 



Author of '• Old South Shore,"' '■ hnmortalis,'" Novel " Jumpinji' 
Judas," *• Tanganika," "Golden Cities," etc. 



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DEC 31 l^^fe 






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BOSTON : 

B. B. RUSSE LL, 

57 CORNKUL. 






Copyright, 1896. 

BY 



SOLON dogg]:tt. y 

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A// rights reserved. 



CONTENTS. 



Soul Lifk 

To THE Roses of Irmma 

In Silence 

The Night 

I Loved Thee, Irmma . 

In the Shadows . 

A Whisper 

Footsteps of my Love 

The Laborer's Princess 

From the Tomb of Irmma 

The Silent Shadows 

To A. 1). 1889 

Home and Mother 

Ode ro Wendell Phillips 

Our Flowers in the Avilion 

Unseen Fooisieps at Gettvsbltkc 

My Friend and I 

Unseen Footsteps in the Oi.n } 

Louana .... 

His Ghost Touched Mk 

Steps of Success . 

Andato ..... 

Nature's Rest in Rapture 

Anna and the Roses . 



Page. 

7 

10 
1 1 
13 
'5 
18 

19 

20 

22 
24 

33 
34 
35 
37 
39 
40 

43 
45 
47 
58 
60 
61 
62 

65 



CONTENTS. 



Thk \'oya(;k t)v iHK Soul . 

Irmm.a, IHK New Year's Rridi-: 

Little May . 

The Weddin*; 

Boston Bells 

Unseen Footsikfs l\ iiii; Old W 

Thoughts from the Stars . 

After the Oolokx Weddinc 

Avilion i'.v IHK Saco River 

Charlie's Lovk 

La Bello .... 

CoMK, Oh Comk ! . 

Though Thou aki Dkad. 1 I-kkl '1 

The Path Supreme 

A Life Idvl .... 



Nkak 



69 

72 

7« 
80 

82 

84 
89 

96 

99 
100 
1 01 
102 
T04 
107 



LLUSTRATIONS. 



No. 1. Tired, theu rest, tired, williut^ to sail that twilight sea. 

" 2. So often, O so often, in the little lane ! 

" -i. From tliiit land where bloomed her orange tiowers. 

" i. I am the Ghost who fades at morn, I come to the sound of 
the wended horn. 

" 5. Then to my oar — one oar, and the world adieu, 'twas dark, 
whitlier the .shore ? 

(>. And then the patient lonesome dog went down and moaned, 
and slept long over Irmma's grave. 

" 7. Ijouana's home and the brook. 

" S. The Elopement. 

" 9. Where Anna's roses bloomed. 

" 10. She brought her loved guitar, sang to one shining .star. 

" 11. One more row; but one. Sailing down the river some 
bright unclouded morn. 

'• I'J. Dear Saco. 










■^ 



TiiCMl, tli.'u rest, tin-.l. willin- to sail that iwili.nlit sea. 




SOUL LIFE. 

-^ 7"ET, my soul, I hear seas iiow on, 
V/ Outdrawn by ever doubtful tides, 

(^ And in their sweet return is love. 
Think not, dear heart, thou art forlorn ! 

Dissembling self in holy gloom ; 
Loved, thou still drinkest hope, yet drawn 
Far down such golden founts of morn. 

Tired ! — and dim lights along the west ; 

Night storms ; and shadows pale — 
Longing for one dear Home — then — rest. 
Half doubts, misgivings — tired ! — 

Willing to sail that twilight sea, 
When word comes o'er the deep for me. 



TELL not of the realms beautifully fair, 
The ideal crests of the air, 
But the life which is more suhlime : 
One who works forever exultant, 
O'er the anguish and trials triumi^haut. 
Against the woes of his time. 

O go forth to the woi k of thy days ! 
Our whirlwinds are moving to Mays. 

Gardens bloom sweetly beyond prison bars ! 
Thus are our eves with the sorrows, 
Changing ever to sweet tomorrows — 

Griefs shining in night like the stars. 

The sorrows, and labor, and strife, 
They measure the meaning of life. 

Not lives have we, like birds in the light: 
Not the joy of a constant Eden ; 
But the feeling of one who has ridden, 

Bewildered on mountains by night. 



.¥(%. «•^ .Mb 



Ungeen Foo'&g'&epg, 

DEDICATED TO THE ROSES OF IRMMA, 
A fid O'er the Withered Roses of My Dead This Halo Gleamed. 

OTHOU, who rules my self control ! 
All certain hand. Thy laws relight 
Her rose-blown grave : the stars of night 
Foretell, that sweeter years will roll. 

Thou ! all-enduring strength. Our feet 
In dust ! O weary soul in woe ! 
When friend death's hridal-roses blow, 
God calls across our lonely deep. 



And man shall smite unyielding stones, 
And hearts shall know a deeper care, 
Or shouts of war may rend the air, 

Thou wilt not leave us all alone. 

O Thou, who brings my dear one home ! 

And lights the hearth, and makes him stay, 

Or brings a thousand joys today ; 

Why should we always weep in gloom ? 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 



IN SILENCE. 

Ij? LEFT her in the little mound of liowers. 

Ill Strong God doth know this darkness He hath made. 

Lift up my heart, for once in happy days 
The sunhght through her golden tresses played ! 
Grief tells a secret when her roses fade. 
To hear the silent footsteps of my Love, 
Niglit harkens in the temples of the dead. 

As one listeneth in the mountain walk, 

Sees not, but hears the far off billows fall, 
So our deep whispers of each tender thought. 

The dead know who through the infinite call. 

Dear, absent voice. Her picture on the wall. 
And they are better known who leave us here, 

Nearer they dwell with nature, all in all. 

Stars, and the dark of a voiceless night ! 

And the perpetual moan of sea. 
And the lash of billows on lone shores ; 

And longings that are smothered in me. 
Years ! and silence of death by her door ; 
And the kiss that is gone evermore. 

O these shadows that come o'er my will ! 

O these tears for the lips that are still. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 

Clear dawn, and gleam of the Jiwrnin^ star ! 

And the rage of the billows I hear; 
For I, too, some dawn will flit afar 

Out on the infinite bay with her. 
Yet, a whisper is murmured so well 

Though the gateways are piled with the strife 
For the sweet in the bitter of death 

Is beginning of a lovelier life. 




SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS, 13 



THE ni(;ht. 

THE sensuous, solemn chords of night, 
Were touched with lonely anguish deep : 
There came a sound, a sound of love, 
Like some dear step of angel feet ; 

For o'er the heart there seemed a spell, 
That would not leave at life's command, 

A touch of calm, divining well. 

Like pressures of a long loved hand. 

Oh calm supreme ! O long delight ! 

Thou teachest me to bear the tears, 
Great sorrows of the darker night, 

That waste the thousand thousand years. 

So vague, so still, to every star. 
Heart beats to hear the silent feet. 

More soft the unseen footsteps are. 
Than music's dulcet dreams in sleep. 

Ye heard the harp-strings of the night, 

Throb to one soul forlorn. 
And waft through all the weary flight 

A whispered grief as ocean's mourn. 



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Ml (iltiMi, <) so olU-'ii, ill tlu- littli' laii(3! 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 



I LOVED THEE, IRMMA ! 



HERE is a strange and vaguely gloomy pallor o'er 
my cheek they say. 

I may not see the spring again. If it is so, 

Irmma — you must cheer my way. 
Wake me not — Irmma, if I sleep — before the evening 

stars have set and gone. 
You will only miss my dancing on the parlor lawn. 
You will not see me, when next summer gently gleams. 
If you want me — Irmma — you must catch me in your 

dreams. 



When I am gone — Irmma — through the long, 

long summer nights you'll sleep : 
Like some motion you may see me Hitting near you 

when you weep. 
The roses in the window, darling, I shall touch with you 

at morn. 
I shall find you, Irmma. I'll be a drop of dew, and 

rest upon your rose at dawn. 
And just the same you'll love me, though sad indeed it 

seems : 
But if you want mo. — Irmma — you must catch me in 

your dreams. 



i6 SOLON DOGGETT'S POKMS. 



3 
In tlie meadows you will Iiear the blue-birds calling when 

I am far away. 
Where we walked together by tlie ocean, the beach will 

seem all cold and grey. 
Yet the early robins, in the bright long days, will be here 

just the same, 
But for me, () often you will listen ! O so often, in the 

little lane. 
You will be very lonesome, when the twilight creeps up 

the dark and gloomy hill, 
And all alone, you'll see the moon come out above the 

tall wind-mill. 



4 

If you close forever my piano, put the music in the 

rack — 
Touch it not, unless you think forever — sometime — I 

am coming back ; 
O back again to greet you, and sing to you our favorite 

song 
When in time we shall be older, wiser, in the happy, 

happy throng. 
Be i)atient, Irmina, waiting through these long and 

tedious scenes. 
But if you 7i>(ifi/me, Irmma, you must catch me in your 

dreams. 



5 
You will see my poems, darling, lying round the little 

basket there. 
Perhaps my canary birds will die. They hang above 

the marble stair. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 17 

You must be always careful of many, many things, you 

know. 
But if r die tonight, and with the evening stars I go, 
Some way, I will promise, some how to come back to 

you, 
Unless our olden, earthly ways of thought grow so 

strange and new. 

6 
^^'ake me not, Irmma, if I sleep, before the evening 

stars are gone. 
For O ! in the dreary marshes, I hear the night winds moan. 
When I have gone to sleep, this wicked, wicked world 

will roll, 
And just the same the rich and poor will for their trifles 

toil. 
I am going far away from this — across the woodlands 

lone. 
Wake me not, Irmma, if / die^ before the evening stars 

are gone. 



7 
O! I know 'tis common — dearest — for all this world 

to weep. 
I know you will lament, when I lie low in shrouded 

sleep. 
See, Irmma, the horns of the moon look strange into 

the sky. 
All through the gloomy purple the stars go down and 

die. 
O far up the immortal deep, endless, long, summer 

gleams. 
But if you want me, Irmma, you must catch me in your 

dreams. 



i8 SOLOX DOGGETT'S POEMS. 



IN THE SHADOWS. 

THERE is a sont( beating strange and holy. 
That is wafted from the deep, — 
Where billows roar and worry 

A sound that wails around the reef ! 

Here is grief that is uttered ever 

From the vague, known evening wind. 

And I wait for the daylight's fading 
For the voice that it will bring. 

I can see vast and airy bridges, 

And the silk sails softly loom, 
Borne on ancient gilded barges. 

Under the arches move. 

Spirit-eyes I have been reading, 

As I sat at eve while moaned the breeze. 
But I knew this shadowed silence 

And this wild music through the trees. 

Dead friend ! thou steppest softly, 
Near my swinging palace door, 

O my dearest one, so gently, 
Imploring me to weep no more. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 19 



A WHISPER. 



AWAY ill the shadows, and dreaming 
O'er the days of a dead delight ; 
What mean they, down in my doubting, 

Footsteps Unseen, one hears in the night 
'Twere thinking the thought of madness 

That is ever haunting my sleep, 
If not, in hours of my sadness, 

Some voice called me o'er the great deep. 

2 
By the still world, Love, reclining, 

Beautiful wind of the night ! 
Why murmur, with days declining, 

In slumber througli dim, dreary light. 
Though my dead may have departed 

Thy touch is welcome, as sweet ; 
Thy breath — is it her same dear heart? 

Same footstep abroad from the deep ? 



I fee/ hex loved, subtle presence. 

But never can touch her form ; 
And I hear thy language chanted, 

Through thy lyres till the chill dawn. 
O why is my Iieart so restless. 

Whenever thou takest thy flight? 
This doubting on earth so ceaseless. 

Beautiful wind of the night 1 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 



FOOTSTEPS OF MV LOVE. 

AMATIVO. 

DREAMING roses 'mid the dews of morn, 
Were not sweeter, or fairest Phosper, 
When first she riseth in the white clonds of dawn. 
O, while she sleeps ! — No lily on the great 
Nyanza, rests upon the silent shores 
More sweetly, or foldeth down its bloom. 

Didst thou e'er watch the sun droop at even, 
And the sad day close her tired lids? 
Or e'er came the shadows of colder night, 
Wrap all her hills about with purple robes, 
More hopeful than in poet-lands of love. 

So well, and deep in dreams, long sleeps my love ; 
Silken steps so soft, no harsher fall, 
Than a fresh rosebud bends unto the ground, 
When blows the evening zephyr from that land 
Where bloomed her orange flowers. 

In affluent airs of summer eves, 
When fall her kiss- dews o'er a sleeping flower 
Winged from the deepening of the dark, 
Falls yet sweeter her inspiring thought, 
Or like petals of lone lilies falling 
On lonely waters dreaming still and soft. 




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From tliat land w hcri' hloomcil licr oruiiL',!' riowi-i's. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 21 

And didst thou ever hear the bhie ocean 
In cahi:!, kiss with a low, sweet murmuring 
The balmy shores of still, Floridian isles? 
Thus is all she uttereth, so calmly sweet, 
O'erflowing from her fall soul's unshadowed deep. 

O, I would give my life, and the wild ocean's roll, 
The long loved exultation and the strife. 
For that delightful, lonely water and its lilies' long 
repose ! 






^a 



so LUX DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
THE LABORER'S PRINCESS. 

DIED 1889. 



T 



IS whispered, like one's fate, 
'riiis side tlie stars they roam ; 
True love alvvavs wanders home. 



If he heeds her footsteps, 

Then the weary toiler, 

Finds in grief a solace, 

The truth, that want and gloom 

Are more than church or state. 

Then should be the worker happy, 

His home the perfect home, 

Where darling eyes dilate. 

No more maudlin revels to the starlight. 

Great men in mines as well as temples ! 

True hearts in huts as in the palace ! 

No matter what our cruel fate may bring, 

Whosoever is contented, 

He alone is king. 

O, lonely in the halls of death 

Why should we moaning rave ! 

All are more than kings at death 

Equal, giftless, you will lay in your grave 

And in my days of darkness 
My sorrows deepen Heaven. 
Dreamless broods the moonlight 
In the silent resting places, 
Where the echoes dieth 
From far-off low bells tolling — 
Where dim shadows moveth. 
Where nothing stirreth 
Where Adel deep sleepetli. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 23 

O Home ! that far off Home. Come home ! 
Dear soul more pure than bridal roses blown. 

And her spirit cometh — 
Where the rose thorn twineth ; 
Where the daisy kisseth, 
Where the tall grass bendeth, 
Through the long, long weary, weary twilights. 
There the thrushes mourn farewell, 
Where lonely sleeps — my only — 
Only, sweet Adel. 

Far over seas, that very day. 
Those very hours ; 
Among the greatof Earth a Queen was laid away. 
They both slept pale in the purple morn. 
Who is the greater Princess? Who shall say ! 
The one who died with a golden crown, 
Or the one who wore the simple wreath 
Where the humble daisies wave? 
O all are more than kings at death 
And equal we all will lay in our grave. 



24 SOLON DOGGETT'S POKMS. 



"FROM THE TOMMS OF IRMMA." 

A IJIGF.XD. 

AMARAMENTE. 



I am the Ghost who fades at dawn, 
I come to the sound of tlie wended horn. 
Out on tlie marsh the moon is late ; 
And I watch the old kings come and go, 
As I stand long years by my castle gate. 

Is it the wail of the far-away billows. 

That murmur so vaguely to me ; 

The tramp of the surf on the raving shore, 

The sound of the breath of the sea? 

Is it the sad glimmer of a light I know, 

That gleams to the desolate waste? 

Like a distant dance of a lonely woe, 

Where the damps of the night-fall haste. 

Is it the glow of the same old light, 

That she placed once there for me 

In the old tower window on high, 

Near my sweet palace home I loved by the sea. 

Is it the rustle of her silken skirts I hear? 

I hear agiin through tlie low green pines — 

As once she flitted through that night of fear. 
















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I am the (ilio.sl wiio lailes at iiioni. I come to tin' somid uf the 
weiuled horn. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 25 

To the hiss of the surf's wild breaking lines. 

No ! none of these ; for she has gone ! long gone, 

And alone in the dusk I vainly wait, 

For the coming of Irmma — my sun — my morn, 

As I watch all chilled by the dear old gate — 

Oh for these thousand years I wait, and wait ! 

2 
The castle stands the same except her room so still. 
I have heard the beat of a hundred sounds — 
But none so sweet as the beat of her heart. 

it rests so cold in her father's grounds ! 
Curses to the father who kept her from me ! 
'Twas but a little while — yet long, long ago, 
She put the light in the tower for me, 

To keep me from a grave of wreck and woe. 

She was sweet — indeed she was sweet ! 

And Hell for the brother that drove me away 

From the gentle sweet flowers at her feet 

That grow on her grave to the dawn of the day 1 

Hallowed the vines by the dear old gate. 

Unhappy as night grow the pale, purple flowers, 

Ah ! while I am weary, and vainly wait 

For the gleam of her light in her far-away towers. 

3 

1 am the Ghost that wants my will. 

Long years — long, silent years — her locks lie still ; 
The golden tress that fluttered to the red eve ; 
And I dream and dream — of what might have been ; 
The dead dream-flowers that about her wreathe. 
The king of the "snowy plume" won her not ; O no ! 
The king with a silver shield did not ; O no ! 
But my heart she loved, beats alone at this gate, 
I watching the chiefs by the tower come and go. 
Did I ever do or dare a noble deed for her? 
Did I sacrifice a tired limb ever more ? 



26 SOLON doggp:tt'S poems. 

Did I travel a desolate deep in woe for her ? 

Did I plod through torrid suns for her o'er and o'er? 

One lost his name, and all glory for her ; 

A shield split in twain in a fiery rout ; 

A head and a helmet were cloven in vain ; 

But what did ever I do to win so fair a heart? 

But she is dead ! and speaketh now no more ! 

what can I do yet for the honor of her ? 
What sacrifice make for the absent I love? 

What ransom in bright gold for the days that were ! 
Can I not give my life and my blood ? O no ! 
Ah, ever and ever I weep and starve o'er her grave. 
Can I sail to the isle where the wild winds blow, 
Can I battle for her the blast and the wave ? 
Ah me ! but the billows roll ever and rave. 
Not for her the height, and the battle is won ! 
Not a deed can I do for her love — too late ! 
But to sit and mourn by the dear old gate. 

4 
Twenty kings have passed me now 
In the silence of my night ; 

1 saw their waving plumes on high, 
Full winged with silver light. 
Each sought my Irmma there, 

But met a darkened fate, 

That rose in sighs upon the air, 

I, breathless at the gate. 

'Twas here she heard my early vow. 

First wore my golden ring — 

That ring alone is with me now, 

For kings she would not sing. 

Down in her heart her song was true, 

Though dipt too early on the wings, 

From lovely eyes fell sweetest dew ; 

They now are dust for northern winds. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 



Here is my castle I built for her, stone by stone, 
And the seasons rolled fast, and the builder laid all, 
Though her name was not carved by him in the rock ; 
In my heart I engraved it with each blow on the block. 
This arch is for her, or will she like this, or even this, 
Will she step on this diamond floor in the dark? 
Shall I swing here a golden censer at her wish, 
Here build a dormer for those sweet blue eyes to 

gaze on the park. 
And as the dear place rose a joy on the dark heath, 
I looked in smiles to the vale of our happiest years. 
But the archway of my castle has changed in a 

breath, 
To a cold threshold of a temple of tears. 
Over the fireplace glow the gold-tipt horns of the elk, 
And the tiles of alabaster, of bronze and of brass. 
The weird faces stare, carved of the dark old chiefs, 
And gloat o'er the shield and helmet I found in the 

marsh. 
I have built all for her — yes, for her ! 
Perfect — how perfect is all this rich, gilded room ; 
Perfect to the last touch of the architect's will — 
Golden all — but for her to gladden the gloom. 
'Tis to the dell that sleeps under the orbs of the dark 
I gaze in the silence to the far away light 
Of her father's tower, swung like a devil's dart ! 

never the beam she hung for my deepest delight ! 
And my teeth are set, and my hands are clenched, 
Will he ever pass the gate of my castle of gold ? 
Can I bear him — or the brawl of his tongue? 

1 could cut for the dogs on the wold ! 

I sit in the dark, and feel the touch of the sweet 

little hand 
Of Irmma, who said, "he was dear father indeed." 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 29 

I am near to the shore in the trough of an awful sea, 
One more — and again ; and I leaped from the bow 

before. 
Ah ! and the sand it tickled my feet ; the light 

gleamed to me, 
I with scarce a robe, drenched by storm and rain. 
My Irmma was there, and beckoned me on to her 

tower. 
It was she, who put the light there alone for me, 
She, my angel, to guide me in so dark an hour. 
But whom should we meet, near his castle gate, 
But her father, w'ho shook with a wrathful ire, 
" Why here ? Abed — be gone ! " he spoke with eyes 

of fire. 
And grasped his daughter by her golden hair. 
One shriek. A bolt came down, tore up the white 

sand. 
Oh, cursed be the lightning and storm that night ! 
Oh, could it have wrenched to the ribs, 
The rings, and the bolts of his castle instead ! 
Then he turned on me. I was cold. Numb with 

the storm — 
Or his white corpse would have whitened the sand 
Where he dastardly turned on me like a dog, — 
I shielding Irmma with my trembling hand. 
He cried " I am not a slave of the shore. 
Should I leave my bed of crimson and gold 
To save from a grave in the surf, such as thee — 
Let that be the work of the pirate of old ! "' 
And my limbs grew strong with that word — 
For the pride of my name and heart was touched, 
And my Irmma I clasped and said; "frail bird 
Kill thy father?" but clutched the word in my 

throat. 
I railed on him ever after, and bit at his heels. 



30 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 

Did I watch him at night in the garden below ? 
Did 1 see him proudly flaunt through his gate ? 
Why in the dark did I not for his curst coming 

wait ? 
And more ; the father, and brother bewildered, 
Kept me ever from her lone little grave. 
Still I see the clouds all crimson in blood ; 
Hear the wail of the long, breaking wave. 
When would he let me see her .'' — no never ! 
Would the sound of the surf sigh with a boom 
When I asked for her by the marsh or the shore ? 
Dare I lift the knocker on her door in the gloom ? 
Thrice our letters came and went unseen, 
But her fourth to me never ; O, never it came ! 
Then on the trees down with the white owls, 
I found carved, wet with her tears, my name. 
Thrice our letters were found in the old tree trunk. 
In a hole that was gnawed by the bears ; 
But alas ! I have missed them here evermore, 
Those drops of gold on the skirts of my years. 
O, the cruel father, hath kept her ever from me ! 
And what shall I ever be to him more .'' 
Can I see him ? call him man t the dog ! 
Let the surf drag his bones on the shore ! 
But the father and brother — they killed her. 
Not with the edge of a dagger so cold and keen ; 
Ah, to God ! better it would fully have been ! 
But they killed her with their railing and spleen." 



One bright, clear cut dawn, full with gold, and sun, 
And when all day before, had lonely slept her tower, 
On that bright summer morn, she said : " I die. 
No more I find my love, and all the trees 
With many dreamy voices wailing loud. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 31 

Awake me, not to the day, but to that shore." 
Then her mother, and those cold hearted, came, 
And o'er her bent and said : " sweet maid ; so soon ?" 
And no more ; but turned unto the wall and wept. 
"Lay me," she said, "by him I beckoned from the 

wa\'e ; 
And saved him by the midnight light, I swung — 
And, if he be not yet dead — for I hear not — 
Fold me in all my sleep with gold, my mother — 
And if thou wilt, carry me to him I love. 
I give him all I have, my self — my soul ■ — 
My heart, my dust, and all I am, to him. 
These are the last, and only things I would ; 
And, if from our chill suns, he be not gone. 
If he so would ; Oh, let him bury me. 
My mother^ yet go to him with me ! although 
I speak not, and say once more for me how well, 
And once again on earth, how well I loved him ! 
Tell him, sigh not for the unclouded dawn 
That soon is fair to me, but much more sweet 
When then my love shall come and meet with me. 
And now — dear mother — take me, for I die. 
Sweet is the far off music ; but the dawn is clear, 
Wafted like love whispers from the yonder sea." 

Then in cold — when the wan moon at midnight 
Looked down upon the high, wild, solemn pines, 
They carried her with silent footsteps, to the place. 
And not a bell tolled one sweet voice for her, 
As they departing left her in the grave. 
And he of whom she spoke, and loved, 
Kiiew not for many a weary, heavy month. 
The little dell where half his soul had gone. 
They told him not — but her fair white Iwund 
Came, and on the ninth, long caressed his hand. 



32 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 

Her hound he silent followed till the eve — 
And there, the patient, lonesome dog went down 
And moaned, and slept, long over Irmma's grave. 

Now, lone travelers see naught here but stones. 
These words were whispers from the "Tombs of 

Irmma." 
Ye hear who listen on the desert waste 
This nightly song borne o'er the vapor)' deep. 

I stand and watch the clouds sail by 

And trace their filmy forms : 
They seem so like her gauzy robes, 

She wore in summer morns. 
I hear her moaning in the wind. 
I hear a shriek, up from the sea ! 
Oh ! the wailing, wailing sea ! — 
I see beyond the stormy steeps 

The cloud skirts of the dawn ; 
They float up from the ocean leas 

To marvelous music borne. 
One thousand years I've stood alone. 
At this same gate, my castle gate, 
Oh, Irmma ! faithful unto thee. 
Oh, could souls see with me ! 
And hear the sounds they do not hear, 
See hands that beckon me. 



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And then the patient lonesome do.i;- went down and moaned, and 
slept long over Irnima's grave. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 33 



THE SILENT SHADOWS. 



"BS it a shade of sadness comes o'er me, 
Jp As I sit alone by the fire ? 

Is it a whisper from the summers departed. 
Flitting so vague on the stair? 

Is it a glimmer of a form I see, 

Far away in the infinite ? 
Is it my soul that murmurs to me, 

In some soft rapture of night ? 

No, none of these. 'Tis the sweet light 
Of a heart that has fled and gone, 

Like a spirit that wandereth back to me, 
A smile again in the dear old home. 

Ah ! as I sit in the silent shadows near, 
I can feel like the beating of wings. 

The impalpable motion round me, 
The throb of a thousand strings ; 

And they bid me in the silence here. 

Be calm, and patient, and still ; 
To labor and hope, though fear 

Should rise like a storm o'er my will. 



34 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 



TO A. I). 

PIK.D 1889. 

WOULD you recall them from their rest. 
The dear ones who speak with us no 
more ? 
Would you enslave the mountain breeze. 

In freedom wandering o'er some bright shore ? 
The flowers that touch the lowly ground. 

Are ever sweeter in their /lative place ; 
And freer all new life our friend hath found 

Though we meet not that darling face. 
The glow that lit the pallid holy eyes, 

Not night, now like the dawn to me. 
Just rising o'er the gardens sweet, 

And more than when I talked with thee ! 
Oh, angel in the sunny clime, 

I know thy face indeed was fair ! 

Thy footsteps like the Zephyr air — 
What think you — why so soon decline ? 
Is there a gleam, through twilight gloom ? 

Is there a dream of sweetness near by me ? 
For somehow I feel celestial morn 

Must be so beautiful to thee. 
Is it true, that life is dark with doubts ? — 
Ah yet, in half-belief light shines 

In little glimpses of great thoughts. 
That overflow the heart at times. 
Clear dream-eyes, like bright stars of night, 

Loved when flower bells bloom again. 
In the long rapture of delight, 

Do we behold through fear and pain. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 35 



HOME AND MOTHER. 

THE ftoisy winds sound loud to me, 
p) Perhaps a storm is on the wave ; 
The chill stars seem so sad with me, 
And mother is in her grave. 

When our home is shut and silent, 
So thin and few the voices there, 

And about the solemn halls in darkness . 
Vague footsteps beat the air, 

Then in my old room so dear to mother, 

When the dreary day has gone, 
I often sit and wonder 

If she knows I'm all alone. 

And her portrait is looking at me. 
Above the silent hearthstone there, 

And her gentle spirit seems to stir me, 
As I take her empty chair. 

Speaks of the dear friends and the great ones, 
Who long ago have left and gone, 

But with their angel hands are beckoning 
Us to keep as we begun. 

Tells of the reward eternal. 

The upward path they trod 
And the triumph of achieving 

Over the weary road ; 

Whispering of the joy and wonder, 

However sad our certain lot. 
The whole of life to conquer. 

Whether in tears or not. 



36 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 



Flits to me this solemn message, 
As we tread on with weary feet, 

Calling from the dear old faces 

" Come — at the gates Avilion meet ! " 




SOLUN DOGGETT'S POEMS. 37 



ODE. 

TO WENDELL PHILLIPS AND LIBERTY. 

' Y ! cast down thy faithless tyrants, earth ! 

And with thy pomp of power, oh, boast no 
more ! 

Lo ! God hath given a son of Hberty 
To great Columbia's sounding shore. 
Oh ! shall the shadow wave above 
Of Crime, that shook the belted world with ire ? 

And forged the chains with tyrannous fire .^ 

Look you, where that ghost departs, 
Only in memory now, among the still slave marts. 
Oh, fairest king of liberty ! 
Voice that spoke so eloquently 
The noble of nobility. 
Night and day, day and night forevermore. 
Thy word, a prayer victorious, o'er and o'er, 
Till powers in the growing worlds. 
Mid all the rolling of the suns. 
Say "Liberty " in the million tongues. 

Tears — martyrs tears. 
Are shed for him. 
Another link in all that glorious chain. 

Since faithful Lincoln fell. 
Has parted with a cry of pain, 

That throbs to every home and dell. 
Wild, deep despair the parting brings ; 
But with the solemn pomp of kings, 
Oh, let the nations bury him ! 

The shout that led our heroes on. 



38 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 

Faith's voice, though riven hearts complain, 

Wells up refreshed this mundane dawn, 
Re-echoes to the bounding main. 

As that true knight of olden years 
Met death with all his armor on, 

So with all these seas of tears 
Death came to our lamented one. 

" Be true — "' a voice calls from the deep, 
The grace of manhood he hath left 

Will live ; and long the nations weep. 

Flashing ! down the noisy years, 
And through wild days of faith and tears. 
Liberty's leading light shall Hame; 
From that, men shall find cheer again ! 

Oh true ! that great men when they die. 
Like pilot-stars that gleam at night, 

Were born for leaders and they lie. 
In the mysterious depths of light. 
Rear ye monumental mansions high 
To that i"Kime ! — deep worth that shall endure ! 
Long, proud Aeons of the far off years, 
Will behold it, with fond hopes through tears ; 
Till red tyranny shall rise no more. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 39 



OUR FLOWERS IN THE AVILION. 

^NOLD snows came clown among the llowers 
\(^ And our roses drooped their leaves. 

Yet warmer spring-time walked again ; 
Calm fell the summer eves. 

Indeed they seem like gentle lowers, 
Sweet girlhood at the garden gate, 

And they who smile in rapture's hours 
With soft blue eyes dilate. 

And when I hear the little feet 

Patter o'er the even walk, 
Oh, often, often do 1 think, 

Death can never touch their thought. 

My darlings in the early sun, 

Dear children of our home — 
For scarce our angels smile begun. 

We wept for one was gone. 

Yet we shall lo\e them all once more 

In the world of long delight, 
For these flowers were not our own, 

But changed to spirits bright. 



40 SOLOX DOGGETT'S POEMS. 



TO THE G. A. R. 

THE UNSEEN FUOTSTEl'S A r OLD ( ;ETTVS[!UR( 1 REUNION. 

§'ER Gettysburg the moon wanes low, 
And calm the old I'otomac rolls, 
But who can all recall the dead? — 
In silence now those footsteps come and 
go. 

On the cold fields no voices rise. 
Nor the yells of the warriors heard, 
As they loudly wailed, to the alarmed skies. 
That day on (Gettysburg ! 

Oh, soldiers of the North and South, 
How well such union seems ! 
Both softly sleep, low in the ground. 
When the stormy lightning gleams. 

C:iear-cut that dawn, and never yet 
Sun rose on sweeter tields; 
And as the gallant regiments went by 
How splendidly they marched to die. 

Look! Look ye! where they come again, 
Jn ghastly squads below the moon ! 
And marching o'er these fields so still 
Yon armed ghosts who met their doom. 



One general said with haughty mein : 
"Alas! — how beautiful they look. 
Those thousand youths, in early prime, 
And their mothers! — where are they ?" 
But he bit his lips, as our banners shook 
Throusrh all that wild, wild daw 



SOLOX DOGGETT'S POEMS. 41 

But they tramped onward thousands o'er, 

In the glow of the golden morn, — 

Above the starry banners streamed — 

Down came the sound of the cannons boom. 

While the battle-lightnings gleamed. 

Oh, mother, where thy gallant son ? 

Oh, sister, where thy brother true ? 

Oh, father, where the boy of thy early dream ? 

When the battle lightnings gleamed. 

Up ! up, once more in the rushing tide, 

Mid shot, and blast, and hissing shell. 

Hark ! — the cannons loud replied ! 

Be brave ! — men. Charge once more. 

And one by one, the boys in blue, 

With bayonets fixed and keen, all bore 

Down upon the wild mysterious tide, 

Below our floating banners true. 

While the cannons roar replied. 

Down — down they went, the thousands 

strong ; 
Dear eyes that once had smiled. 
Dear hearts that mused that summer morn, 
Sweet youth dismantled where it lay 
As the cannons long replied. 
And father met his son and brother there ; 
And, clash, and din were wild all day ; 
Oh, God ! — no respite yet ; no sunny side ? 
But the cannons long replied. 

3- 
To-night I stand on Gettysburg, — 
And there is no breath or sound. 
But my beating, throbbing heart. 
Yet the rustle may be underground. 
The bones of our noble boys, they rest. 



42 LOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS- 

They sleep, all sweet, our boys in blue 
By the love-light airs of the balmy shore, 
But the cannons sound no more. 

Oh, shout on high my boys in blue, 

From sunny south, to northern Maine, 

The starry banner waves for you ; 

Hail it ! — take courage once again. 

A union comes, no crosses borne, 

Eternal in the lands Avilion ; 

And there, no places where the fields are red 

No South or North, no battles of the dead. 




SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 43 



MY FRIEND AND I. 

THROUGH the long, dim aisles of night 
My soul meets his in the infinite. 
Unnatural in this grave to lie ! — 
We drank life's wonder to the lees 
And up the pleasant mount we went. 

Oh ! — oh, for the happy days gone by ! 

We laid him near the gloomy chestnut trees ; 

Think you he climbs ?>Ionadnock's rainy air ? 
His soul again, as vapor, when dead leaves fall, 
And with the winds, comes up the hillside there. 
Hear it, down the dusky winter twilight sigh : 
" So sad — so dark, to say good by." 

In the darkness of night they glide like a dream 
With the dallying shades of the long, long ago; 

In darling-deep sadness for the days that have been. 
The absent fond footsteps we are weeping for now. 

The dearest souls — so lonely — sweep by us unseen, 

And truer than a dream, yet not a dream. 
But the AviUon watch-lights gleam ! 

Dead shadows are not what they seem. 
So sad, so sweet, the words good by ; 

So true, those tears smile back good by, 

And say that all the world will die. 



Despair but touches the morning golden, 
A flash between dark and the Eternal : 
From despair the soul riseth immortal, 
And short the moan of the dirge. 



44 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 



Far on the shore, the home of the billows, 
Loudly shrieks the sea at midnight ; 
And on the ruthless ledge of Minot 
Echoes the wail of the surge. 
At times through the vapors abysmal 
Bewildered by the light's pale glimmer, 
Flit lone birds that beat weary against it, 
And there in the flash of a moment 
Are dashed in the bellowing seas. 
Like them are the souls in the billows 
Of despair and sorrow round me. 

Oh, we once hunted on the mountain side ! 
Have seen the drifting storm cloud wildly ride 
O'er life's high peaks, and we have heard at night 
The vague voice of some distant cataract 
Fxhoing sadly lone from height to height. 
\'es, we have heard dream-footsteps in tlic wind. 
And loved to watch the dancing of the sea — 
These once were loves, but there are deeper whispers 
more to me. 



SOLOxV DOGGETT'S POEMS. 45 



UNSEEN FOOTSTEPS IN THE OLD PARLOR, 

OR, 

mother's picture. 
1 . 

'AZING in that still room at the portrait of 
mother, 
I think of the dear ones long, long dead and 
gone; 
And the children, like dreams, they cluster about me. 
Hark ! without, I hear the wild death-beat of the 
storm. 

Somehow the children's voices fall low into whispers ; 

Oh ! — and the weary soul in me grows dumb, 
While thinking of the long life -day of the absent — 

For she is gone — once so beautiful, fair and young. 
And the sweet love-eyes in the picture of mother, 

Again look at me with the smiles of long, long ago; 
And from their depths once more comes gently the 
whisper, 

" My boy, my boy ; let not thy spirit droop so low." 
But the little children look up to me and wonder 

What makes the warm tears gather in mine eye. 
For they in innocence dream not that from mother, 

Come sweet tidings from Home, where Love can 
tiever die. 
Deep love — deeper than grief ceaseless in weeping, 

That calmeth a weary world in the long travel of 
years. 
The love of a departed, gentle, fond mother, 

The love loo full, too true, even too deep for tears. 



46 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 

And in those my fair and fairy days of childliood, 
Ah ! I feel them now so holy and so near ! 

I know there is thy blessing left me — mother, 

Though June gild not the hills with all those pleas- 
ant years. 

But not to me alone is all thy love, my mother. 

There are others, and another up across the blue, 
To whom long love returneth ever, and forever — 

Returns to me no joy from whence the happy spirit 
flew. 



Lonely in summer-darks, I dream with thee, my mother. 
And wake at crimson morn to miss thee more and 
more. 

Yet, in beholding thy dear picture — mother. 

With thee 1 walk again a child, in and out the door. 

And when the winter sunsets fall o'er lone oceans. 
And these children follow on, and I am gone with 
thee ; 
And once more 1 am thy little child, my mother, 

1 shall thank thee for the long life of love thou 
gavest me. 
Immortality shall reign with us, mother. 

Days, long days that were, will be sweet as summer 
afternoons. 
And the vague strangeness in the wood, Death, that 
shadow, 
Again will never drown the splendor of the blooms. 

And now thy blest, and unseen, gentle footsteps, 

Glide from out the dreary land of darkness into light ; 

I can, through my whole soul, feel those tender kisses, 
Know those hands, by their touches, reaching across 
the night. 






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Louana's liouie and the brook. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 47 



LOUANA. 

[HE turrets of the palace look 

Like adder's tongues ; and down the walk 
The purple flower bells droop. 
Further down, the waters of the brook 
Once quiet made their babbling tracks, 
Now, alas, they roar in cataracts ! 

The times are changed, but I was young. 

And musical the brooklet ran ; 

And all the pulses beating warm. 

When Louana's darling feet 

Gently touched her palace lawn. 

The roses bent to kiss her feet, 

The daisies told me she was sweet. 

Too sweet, too sweet ! for they found 

That which touched the days with horror — 

And even now the palace lights burn red. 

This lawn she walked is full of shadows. 

The dead body of her lover ! — 

Two red spots where her lilies blowed, — 

The dead man laid across the path. 

And in the path three fearful spots of blood. 

What wonder that brook runs cataracts, 
And all the world has turned to bane ! 
And in the dell are ghastly voices low — 
Ah, me ! ah me, I loved her so. 
I loved her so ! Louana, oh, Louana ! 

I walk to-night — I hate the path. 
On high beyond her palace tower, 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 

Look you how the moon glows red. 
In the brook are purple spots — 
There's a moaning in the flood, 
And the moon looks like a disk of blood. 

But 1 have learned more now. 
Only a few years ago she loved, 
Yet to me an age — a weary age. 
Was she too proud for me ? 
Was she too kind to the one 
Whose dead body they found, 
Kinder to him than to me ? 

Oh, little purple bells that blow 
Beneath these weary, weary feet ! 
Oh, ground where summer daisies bloom. 
Tell me of those little feet that trod 
The dimples of this darkened lawn. 

Oh, will the crimson shadows of the morn 

Make my blood run happy yet ? 

But thou moon, horribly red with blood' 

Look down the same as ever when 

Louana walked once here alone, 

And with me, she saw thee then 

Not a disk of blood as now, sad moon. 

To-day I, for one moment have forgot 

What I saw last night, while lost 

In vague dreams, walking on the lawn. 

On the dew-kissed grass now I lay 

And let the warm sun change my icy heart. 

Ah me ! But in my diary, with all. 

With all its leaves that I have kissed 

So much — for here Louana's hand 

Traced her own name — thus and thus : 

" I love thee more mv love, and more 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 49 

limn ever I can that Leon Levane." 
And here she signed her darhng name — 
Louana — oh Louana, my sweet love. 
And all the stars have told me more 
Last night. I do not meet her at the door 
This morn, or any morn — any morn ! 
Oh these sad years — and she is gone. 

In my diary I find this story yet remains — 
Reminds me of the happy days. Those days were 

Death's. 
Leon Levane. Oh, Leon Levane ! 
Thus the diary sayeth as I read. 
Tears warm my pale, cold cheeks. 

Warm, and warm as ever beats my heart 

Where art thou, Louana my love .' 

She loved me. Her white roses knew all. 
They laid in sleep, or rose and fell 
That night upon her gentle, panting breast, 
And then her roses folded in their rest. 
But this is what my diary sayeth, 
'Tis true. Oh, I remember well — well. 
But those spots of blood were in the dell. 
The path is only worn a little more. 
Thoughtless souls tread it o'er and o'er. 

They know not what I know. 

And if I told the whole, they would not care to 
know. 

Leon Levane, I hate thee ! I hate thee ! 

I wish thou wert dead, Leon Levane ! 

Thus my diary wildly reads — 

Can she be anything at all to you? 

You love her — what of that } 

Can that make amends for me .^ 

Do I think any better of }-ou for that ">. 



50 SOLON DOGOETT'S POEMS. 

If you should put your ear to the rose 
That slept over her heart last night, 
Would it whisper, would it sing. 
Whisper to your soul a whisper sweet — 
No it would not, to you it could not. 
O, Leon ! lost Leon Levane. 

I hate to see your foolish, love-lorn eyes 

Watch the palace lawn she treads. 

I hate to see you spin your golden threads ; 

You think for her you weave your net 

Of strange, most idiotic love. 

I tell you she hates you, Leon Levane ! 

Sweet Louana of the South, 

Thy roses tell me thou art sweet. 

The lily's tender petals bow 

When thy red lips they meet. 

How' often, dearest, in thy dreams 

Do the forget-me-nots I kissed. 

And sent to you, my love. 

How often do they falter near thy cheeks ? 

I dream those tender eyelids press 

Those Howers 1 gave from my sad heart ; — 

To you nuirnuu" all my love, 

And love you in your restlessness. 

When the moonlight's silver gleams 

Fall across thine own couch of silken down, 

I see thee smiling in thy dreams. 

You kiss the flowers, your room is still, 

1 dream you press my hand 

In all your gentle sleep below the gold moon beams. 

And to the casement now you glide ; 

Pull back the dusky curtains blown 

Where the night winds take mv thought to thee. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 51 

I breathe my love across the night to thee ; 

And in my dreams you waft to me 

What your roses hear you lisp. 

Last night I listened to your rose, 

The one you sent — it whispered well 

The word you breathed. Tell me, Oh tell ! 

To the rose I said. It answered, " I love." 

I listened to your lilacs sweet, so sweet. 

They said, " I come ;" and your little jonquils 

Laughed their golden laugh, " I come ;" 

And your bunch of violets said, '• I will, I will ;" 

And you sent these flowers with all your love. 

But has Leon Levane had violets ? 

Oh, nb. I caught him listening to a rose — 

It said naught, and all the petals fell. 

Then my heart beat loud, " 'tis well, 'tis well.'' 

He mopes like a silly king I know, 

Who has lost his pride and crown of gold. 

Ah, me ! What of that, that ? 

Up at the fort they think I'm engaged. 

And the old gossiping nurse declares 

There's a bright, strange look in my eyes. 

What of that ? Is it love or hate ? 

For I know not which is the greater. 

My love of beautiful Louana, 

Or my hate for the fool that stands in my way of late. 

I dreamed there were three spots of blood 
In the path that led o'er the lawn, 
A murderer was hunted over the road — 
The sky looked dreadfully red at dawn. 
The sky was fearfully red at dawn. 

Further on my diary says, 
To-day I wander to the brook, 



52 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 

O, little brook How sweet, 
Beyond the palace wood, 
The pines and larches meet, 
The love-deep music of the flood. 
My angling line is in the stream, 
The pickerel lazy sleep. 
To me the flower bells seem 
Dying in a wild love dream. 

Sunny the bank of green, all sun my heart. 

Which dreams deeper of love, oh, heart ! 

The full rose blooms at my feet? 

Louana oft here hath pressed 

With her neat little form above ? 

Or my heart for her that will beat and beat ^ 

I have forgotten my line, my lo\e, 
And the fish has cleared with my bait. 
Oh, Louana, Louana my dove ! 

Beautiful eyes! transporting light ! 

Sensorial deeps to me. 
Love dream splendors — not of night — 

Wild dreams, wild dreams ! look back on me ! 

Not the unrelenting woe 

When Venus' frown denies, 
Vexeth more where'er I go 

Than those imperial eyes. 

Stars of Lethean twilight they, 

Fair of new unclouded dawn, 
Plashes flitting to the day. 

Sweet blue from perfect gold-dewed morn. 

And this was the little song I sang. 
While the brooklet waters ran. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 53 

Ah, me ! could my soul forget, 
Even for a moment, cease to dote 
O'er Louana's glorious eyes — 
They, below such golden ringlets set, 
Oh, to be caught in such a gilded net ! 
Oh, to die with so fair a mate. 

Louana, oh, come and be 
My little rose crown round my brow ; 
Come be my diamond finger ring. 
That I may clasp thee now. 
Come be my golden locket fair. 
Wherein your picture sweetly rests 
That I against my bosom wear. 
O, be my diadem forever more — 
No king a finer gold will bear 
On crowned brow of state divine ; 
No scepter that can rule me well. 
Not half so deeply charmed as thine. 

Oh, all these wood flowers, sing 
Our marriage lays in happy hours- — 
Let the darling violets ring 
Their little perfect bells and sing. 

Burns the low sun in his torrid wastes, 
But I forgot. See the sun set. 
The robin trills his latest trills; 
The brook laments in purple rills ; 
Hark ! listen ! cracks the bush 
Down by the winding river path. 
Oh, oh, the curse ! the damned path. 
What you, Louana, coming now ? 
And on your arm, Leon Levane ! 
I saw them turning by the rock 
Where the streamlet bends and raves. 



54 SOLON DOGGETT-S POEMS. 

You kissed her in that ckisky wood, 
I hate you! — damned laQon Levane ! 

I clenched my hand, my teeth were set. 
I tell you blood can stain a lily hand. 
I could not bear to see him take 
Her lily hands at all in his. 
My palms were sore with pinching. 
My teeth were edged in clinching, 
1 heard my heart beat, and beat, 
My blood, 1 felt it rave and leap. 

Her ring that twined my finger broke, 

1 threw it in the raving stream. 

Oh, for the days that once have been ! 

Oh, Louana, mine! — mine.'' not mine. 

What Vixcyour days that once ha\'e been? 

From the woods I turned and wept. 

Tears, even tears — tears of death are naught, 

I hate thee Leon Levane. 

Louana, your love was dearly bought. 

I thought you loved me, me ! 

Never yet shall dawning rise 

Over such full, all lovely eyes, 

But Louana — forever I am dead. 

Each morn and even dies, 

Bury me, Louana, come by my grave, 

I'll hear you walking o'er my head ! 

Oh, that all the shaded orbs 

Of useless, useless earth would sink. 

Where, Louana, thine eyes looked through. 

The pale clay of the grave will touch with dew. 

Keen, lone shadows of purple night 

Will sweep o"er thy loveliness. 

Thou, oh, thou wast born to love f/ie. 

Leon Levane what hast thou taken fro7n me. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 55 

But Leon is the brother of a count, 
Louana fancies a golden crown, 
And a purse full of glitter and trash. 
What if the palace should fall in a crash ? 
Glass houses are never secure. 
But she is proud ! and yet am I. 
Leon Levane limps like a dog 
That was cowed by a king long ago. 
Would it be easy /or him to die ? 
Who knows but leaving his gold 
And all his palace of wealth. 
Will make him suffer more in death? 
Who knows but my revenge will be 
Better tho' shamefully better for this. 
Oh, I am proud, I care not for a king, 
They ^h-xl fool s love, love royal blood, 
Would it not be better for me to die .'' 

In a month I went by the lawn ; 

And the rose blooms by her palace vase 

Were withering in a wild, wild disgrace. 

"Oh, once there was gold under the urn," 

She said, and I heard her laugh 

A strange and scornful laugh. 

But her words, they would burn — 

Till she touched the edge of the vase 

And an adder ran out from under the urn. 

And what is the adder of love ? 

I thought, while I dreamed a dream 

Of the night. Stars were not stars, 

But all had changed to threats like war, 

Burned in blood like tlie orb of Mars. 

'Twas a year I wandered forlorn, 

And every morn was not morn, 

All days began with a dark shroud of storm. 






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The Eloin'iueiit. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 57 

By ladder from her window high, 

Eloped with Leon Levane. 

Oh, Lou ana mine, you will not he mine, 

Tho' ages roll in all the golden seas of time. 

They will find my robes at that brink, 

They will think I am dead and gone. 

Who died with a heart forlorn. 

I hear in the street below, 

Oh, the sound of marriage bells ! 

The feast is spread, the lights are lit. 

Oh, the sound of marriage bells ! 

Not, not for my weariness of soul — 

They are the joy for my own death, — 

Those bells are all for thee, Leon Levane. 

It was not a wedding night, 

It was a night of death ! 

The lights were in the hall ; 

Like summer dreams the music soft 

Was wafted down the palace lawn, 

They meant a happier morn. 

I passed the gate. In darkness dire 

The path I found, that hellish ground, 

In the dark he thought to smother me, 

And grasped me by the throat, the dog ! 

Across that path he laid — 

Oh, proud, Leon Levane ! 

But the gash within his breast 

I did not stop to see. 

But I knew he was dead, 

When he lays in his grave 

I'll kick the stone from its head. 



58 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 



HIS GHOST TOUCHED ME. 



IS ringing call, no more shall .sound 
Along the long, wild, shadowed glen ; 
Must leave his gold to other men, 
His gallant horses to the ground. 

Lone years to miss him whom we loved, 
Who danced with us below the lights, 
Who joyous sang through revel nights — 

What though he from his grave hath roved ! 

Doth he forget us ? when night glows 
Again — when our loud voices ring ? 
Forget to join us while we sing, 

His feet to tread the place he knows ? 

Unseen, who glides in happy hour. 

Whom earth hath loved, and he hath cheered. 
Win roam about his home endeared, 

Dare turn the door-knob yet once more. 



Before my easel puzzled long 

I sit. He whispers, " Paint this shade." 
Thus-wise are all the great songs made ; 

Some spirit guides each poet's song. 

They know me not, friends by my side. 
Jle stands back of my shoulders now/ 
As when he talked with me below ! 

Shakes hands, as once before he died. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 59 

No touch of gloom can shade his doors, 
Where God's eternal sunlights play, 
Nor blind the tracks of night nor day, 

Nor waste the fullness of the hours. 

All still, marvellous motions made, 

Along the far harmonious deep, 
Are changes constant made to change, 

By one who made fair eyes to weep. 

What are the little sounds we make. 

Across the infinite of thought .-' — 
Let constant Faith, not knowledge break. 

Our heavy breathing sleep of doubt ! 

I have love of these beautiful choirs 

That glide at the shade of the day ; 
Sweet is their advent when I falter 
Over life's— relentless — long way. 

The long way that is circled with shadows 
Round a watcher that comes in the night, 

For among them beat softly the footsteps 
Of my dear one now living in light. 

And like the glimmering, shrouded vapors. 

That climb again Monadnock's solemn height. 

Behold — once more the angel presence ! 
I wander — alone — with him to-night. 

Why not ? — though we laid him down to slumber, 
So cold, who climbed the mountain dim, with me, 

On Monadnock, saw the stars together. 
And both gained the same old victory. 



6o SOLON DOGGE'lT'S POEMS. 



STEPS OF SUCCESS. 

fET your fond hopes ungained ? 
Oh your full joy is not in gaining! 
Neither should God be blamed. 
Take life, the freshness of its coming, 

This wild ghost by the mane ! 

The voices in the holy conscience 

Will give thee strength again. 

Nobler the man who lives in patience 

Though all his work may fail ! — 
Keeping happy when not succeeding 

Shows God in faces pale ! 
Pale with the midnight watches dreary, 

Pale with long, deep despair, 
Pale with the labor of the weary. 

With the wild stress of care. 

Then on, on ! — go, while yet 'tis morning 

While the full heart is young, 
To look back in rapturous triumph 

To days of duty done — 
Remembering that in the striving 

Is glory that will bless : 
Sometimes life's doom of solemn sadness 

Will bring the best success. 

Tho' king in workshop or in war, 
Or whether fortuned, great or poor, 

Before God we are just what we are 
And nothing more. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 6i 



ANDATO. 

J THINK with the silence in the mountains ; 
I feel the clouds ; I feel the stars, the trees 
Know the dark Supreme's eternal fountains, 
For now my darling dead, sleep sweet in these. 

When we wake from all this life of slumber, 

And care, a dream, is never more, 
Meeting loves, once torn from us asunder. 

It will seem strange we wept so o'er and o'er. 

In these rooms of grief, unrest and shadow. 
Some whisper fills our dear one's place; 

Yet in our lone home of gloom and labor, 

Looks in that dear, calm, pleasant, loving face. 

If from here alone our friends departed, 

God went with them through the silent door. 

They rest in nature, oh tender hearted. 
No voyage, but meeting, and the shore. 

Watching, in the dim primeval silence 
Across the first vapor dawn of stars. 

The ideal, the living souls were wafted, — 
Still there for us beyond the golden bars. 



62 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 



NATURE'S REST IN RAPTURE. 

jTHE long, o'ershadowing hours delighted, 

Grew tremulous like light vipon the purple 
stream, 
With music deep at dusk, or murmuring, 
Still as the night falling down in dream. 
Then beat, dear heart, in the rose-bloom shower. 
Transported from all dolorous beams. 
Vague whispers wafted o'er gold-green woods 
Voiced dulcetly, and light 1 dipt the oar. 

Then fell a calm deeper than twilight ; 

And the moon came down and touched 

Amorously the fairy prow. 

And danced before dull saddest eyes, 

Glittering, ever smiled below. 

Silver censer, fallen fair, to rise ! 

And I all forgot 1 breathed. 

Ecstatically lost, and lulled with dream. 

Wondering, what meant so sweet an hour, 

While subtle-paced old night. 

Knew the eternal stars athwart the stream. 

Fair slept low islets lovelier blown 

Than lilies hidden in meadow grass, 

With kiss-dews o"er sad wavelets, under gloom, 

In the pleasant sea-bathed marsh ; 

Voices that lower in the evening sigh, 

Than dear words on lips of lovers die ; 

Echoes that murmur to the forlorn heart 

A sweetness of the far away. 

Dwells the coolness of the seasons here, 



I 



SOLON DOGGETTS POEMS. 63 

And the long, soft, music of the evermore. 
The pale, tall weeds, pull downward. 
And the closed flower-bell sleeps in calm, 
Upon this most enraptured shore. 

And to me, the midnight stream, 

Seemed no mure as water, 

But changed into all-moody thought. 

Weary my soul, yet knew the Avilion Lights; 

My thoughts not in the amis of death, but life, 

For indeed I could not even die. 

And every dream recrowned me, like a wreath. 

As it were, the dim passionless air, 

Long wandered o'er the silent stream 

Far off, and where the fragrant grove 

Down-beat the yearly cone, 

And the white birch swung down. 

Sounds died o'er the night beyond, 
Voices that vex the daylight world ; 
All envy, hatred, foolish scorn, 
Dins of life — they wholly failed. 
For nothing here w-as sorrow-born ; 
But all was sleeping infinite. 
And Love's face ever glimmered near. 
For dear Nature's once sullen harp, 
Thrilled in wondrous delight, 
And there seemed no shrouds of night. 

Blame not thou my heart, if hating 
Full to wake from holy rapture. 
To a low, dumb, insatiate world ! — 
Will the day dawn ? and we whirl 
Lifeward to the torrid fields. 
Where the charm will all be broken ? 



64 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 

Oh, sweeter the little calms we know. 
Awhile abiding where the soft winds blow, — 
To rest beside the wandering stream. 
Than to hear our harpstrings throb so low ! 
Dearer the dream, the love-born lingering hour, 
Than ever the cold, repining want ; 
The eternal fret ; the unattempted shore. 



v> 



-f 



.s^ 



^' 






::^^ 




Whi'i-f Anna's roses lilooun'd. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 65 



ANNA AND THK ROSES. 
I . 

Nl) now the whirling winds iiave come to-night 

upon the icy fields ; 
The snow is on her grave^ — darling — and the 

moon across it gleams. 

Last spring I went to call her — gently, but she would 

not heed, 
Tho' the same last fall the golden rod shed down its 
tender seed. 

In the high and yellow corn, lirother, in the early 

autumn days, 
Her doves would come and coo for her ; but now they 

too have gone beyond the distant waves. 

Shut her little chamber window - brother — shut the 
dove-house door, 

There they'll never come to see her — darling — dar- 
ling — or love her any more. 

2 , 

Don't you remember — Albert — the week before she 

died ? 
We rode up to the village, with pale Anna by our side: 

And there in the lonely cottage, we saw the rose-bud 

sweet — 
And Anna said — "when the iiowers shall bloom where 

shall we meet ! " 

Don't you remember the tears, Albert, came in our 

saddened eye ! 
For you felt, dear brother, that Anna soon would die. 



66 



SOLON DOGCETT'S POEMS. 



Then she bent and let her waxen fingers touch the bud- 
ding flower. 

And said — "I want it when it blooms! when it 
blooms yovi will know the hour." 

Anu<i /oi'e^ the tender plant, and God smiled upon the 

rose. 
And all the leaves expanded green by Him who loves 

and knows. 

And you, you promised it to Anna, until the day. 
And we turned from the lonely cottage, and then we 
rode away. 

But on the twelfth — at midnight — when the winds 

blew cold and shrill, 
And the horned moon was setting, beyond the high 

pine hill ; 

]3on't vou remember brother? — there was strange 

music murnuired low. 
And you thought it whispered ".\nna "' It said, "that 

she must go." 

'i'hen you woke me, Albert, and said, ''the angels 
called her home ; '' 

And we were awake all night, brother, ( )h, in the wild- 
est night of gloom. 

And the weary winds wailed about the empty house 
below, 

And the candle flickered on the wall, when the morn- 
ing stars were low. 

'I'hen came a smile across dear .Anna's sweet and 

pallid face, 
Lighting up across the darkness, a shadow borne 

apace. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 67 

Oh, the dawn glowed sweet as ever, with the violet by 

the rill, 
With the mallows in the meadow, and the daisies on 

the hill; 

And the deep and mellow morning, bloomed again 

upon the balmy moor, 
But Anna laid in beauty — brother — would smile to us 

no more. 

Then don't you remember — always ! — how they brought 

the opening flower? 
And said ; " She wished it when it blooms ; when it 

blooms — you will know the hour: " 

For the rose had bloomed so perfect, that morn, so 

calmly bland. 
Yes you took and laid it. brother, in her cold and 

waxen hand. 

Sister Anna lies in rest — still and white, perfect as the 

rose, 
For her soul hath bloomed again, in rapture, where- 
.soe'er she roves. 

We shall sometimes hear the angels, Albert, chanting 

low with her, 
For she thinks it not farewell, waiting for us to talk of 

things that were. 

3- 
And now, dear brother — when 1 sleep — and the night 

is clear and still, 
I think I see her little grave, brother, and a light above 

the hill. 

Bright it looms about a blessed garden, far, far away. 
And Anna is ever there "among the roses" fair as the 
golden day. 



68 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 

Pray, Oh brother ! wait and hope — for we must wait 

and weep ! 
But sometimes, I even hear her footsteps — a music 

low and deep. 

And on the far ofif wings of morning, in early crimson 

light, 
T hear a voice : but the cold starlight gleams upon her 

grave alone — so long, long, at night. 

I shall be weeping when the springtime snows are 

melting from the uood, 
And the winds are bringing sweetness, brother, upon 

the summer Hood. 

Oh then I shall not meet her, where the early roses 

blow. 
Coming up the long green yard, where she, darling, — 

darling — loved to walk with you. 

But at night, down by the willows, bathed in the shin- 
ing of the stream ; 

When the bright, warm fields, brother, are resting 
sweet in dream ; 

There, still we will hear the whisper of her calling, far, 
far away, 

And her low, and ceaseless warning of the immortal 
day. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 69 



THE VOYAGE OF THE SOUL. 

§LEEP my soul in all thy solemn sleep ! 
I'ill the happier morning break with light 
Far o'er thy dark face, O wandering deep ! 
Void why dream J, lonely in doubts torment, 
Lost in thoughts, long, long ripe fields of night ? 
Cease, cease, looking back in self, all torn 
In the hate-o"ershadowed years forlorn ! 
Lo ! fresh, full-hearted rosy Hope, 
Clear star, is laughing for the morn ! 
Soul was wafted outward on life's chill waves. 
Boisterous waves, more deep than tears at Death. 
What second I know not, in what full days ; 
Time beckoning. The past sleeps low, in dream, 
And the long cycles of deep, burdened, years. 
Are touched, as I look back, with Love, God's gleam, 
O'erflown regret, the sacred gleam of tears ; 
For through those wild eyes re-orient glowed Love, 
And lamentation stilled the earth born fears. 
On, on ! — my yearning Soul. More light ! new worlds. 
Ask, till broods the purpling night below 
Of Time, all days of time sighing : "Yes. No.'' 
As quenched stars contemplations fell. I here, 
As one charioted in gold, vain gold. 
Unto that sunlight-land beyond called dawn. 
Ere long, a voice came up the relentless deep ; 
"Grief is what men make themselves fear. Alas ! " 
My despair cried; "Trust ! Light foUoweth sleep." 

Men were weeping when I came to long thought; 
And blood flown hills gleamed with bright swords of 

war : 
And this was my first scene mundane — Ah me ! 



70 SOLON DOGGETTS POEMS. 

Men bat'ling human beasts, to learn the art 
Of morals through Aeons, that wrong might flee, 
Evolving truth. Then on Life's morning sea 
Great winds arose, and long triumphant blew, 
Blew from the cardinal points. Goodness, Sin, 
Faith, Force, smote my life-sails impelling me. 

Sin came chilling in wild gusts, ever North, 
Mocking Death ; but constant from garden-lands 
(iood smiled, ambrosial, from the summer South. 
Inviolate Faith, and Force, rolled to the strand 
Life's ocean with high winds ; I drifting South. 

long I battled with the sounding waves ! 
The prow bent toward those tropic Island-lands, 
To that sweet Home-land of the immortals. 

1 strengthened by contending Faith and Force. 

I yet in life ? — On the great ocean rolled 
Around me. Only at times the dim mist 
Lifted, when 1 saw those Holy Palms 
Tremble golden, below the stormy East. 
I passed the Sirens. 1 passed Toil's dark capes. 
On the syenite shores men had long built 
'I'emples, glorious to their idol Gods, 
Whose lamps outshone the dawn. Go where thou wilt 
Life said, "deep lie Jiations beneath earth's sods." 
O'erworn, in calms of night, 1 studied long. 
Thought was childish, forth-feeling, like a dream ; 
Till the low, pilot-stars flashed victor-lights ; 
Until man's God Himself near me did seem. 
Then indeed, I well felt God made the world. 
Ah ! Evolution's Ghost in shadow came ; 
Said; " She made the world," then that shadow fell, 
Only on the great deep to rise again, — 
" Through doubt comes Faith 1 " I heard a wild voice 
knell- 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 71 

And on I sailed, with all that weight of thought ; 
Saw the beauty of pearly-peaks on shore ; 
Heard deep music — deeper than Love's death-sighs; 
Yet the vast, Life-waves lashed, and wailed, and 

roared, 
Lifted their backs, till tears were in mine eyes. 
Men worshiped. W ild the light grew tremulous. 
Neither full day, nor night, as when one dies. 
Ah me ! — as time, my soul could not return. 
But my whole heart with Hope must thrill and burn. 




72 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 



IRMMA. 

'IHK XKW VKAR's HRIDE. 
T . 

§HARP dianiond-eves of crystal fell, 
Soft twinkling by the moon ; 
And through the night, to dance in gloom, 
The frost cut keen the star-crowned hill. 

The wild dogs in the glens were hushed ; 
Affluent notes of blue-birds call ; 
Silent the frozen waterfall, 
And eddies round the under brush. 

From wood to wood of birches lone, 

The white sleet smote the dreary shore, 

As though the spring could come no more, — 

Hark ! — loud the reed swamp pipes its moan. 

December blew his trumpet blasts. 
Across the glare of glossy rill. 
Reverberant from hill to hill. 
Wild through the sullen, sea-blown marsh. 

From icy wood, from grot to dell. 

They chanted through the reeds and thyme. 

Whirling by the snow-ghost pine, 

And wild our New Year's evening fell. 

" Spread wide, with gold, the wedding feast," 

Rang loud through bower and hall ; 

In all the lighted walks below, 

To the snow bound vines that clasped the wall. 

From where ambrosial waters flow, 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 73 

Bring pearls of \\hich llie orients tell, 

And let them grace adorning well, 

That dearest brow of all below. 

Twine roses where they queenly grow ; 

Let lilies in the bridal wreath ; 

Bring asphodel, sweet breath ; 

Twine crocus, little cups of snow. 

Let loudly ring from town to hill, 

The music blown from hall to hall ; 

Let fairy footsteps lightly fall, 

And echo to the wintered rill. 

It is for us the Bride's New Year ! 

Oh hear the song of marriage bells ! 

And laughing girls adown the dells, 

And merry sleigh-bells ringing clear. 

One rosy cheek is flushed with light, 

The silver harps are twined with flowers ; 

Look ! Venus skirts the airy hours, 

And thousand lamps are burning bright. 

3- 
Streaks like a nebulous light, pale, and deep 
Ushered the New Years morning drearily^ 

drearily — 
And the sounds of the shuddering ice on the hills 

of snow, 
And the saddened light of the early morn, made 

the dawn sigh loud in its woe. 
Then a phantom, flitting in the wan light said ; 
" Ah, Bridegroom, and thy heart ! — thy Love ! — 
Thou art no more than a firefly glimmering 
Through the short cycle of a summer even. 
Mortal ! the hour of thy joy is all too short, 
For the star of thy life, and thy early love, hath 
strangely come to naught — 



74 SOLON DOGGETT'S I>OEMS. 

For know you not, your litlle bride /.v dead y 

J)o\vn the dreary road-ways, of the leaHess, barren 

ehns, 
'I'he winds came deeply sighing, from the dim and icy 

reahns. 
Upward from the village mourned the murnmr deep 

and low — 
"The bride is gone ! — she is among the holy angels 

now." 
Not a sound rose from the mansion, in the dreary 

morning hour, 
For there slept a face of beauty, blushing never, 

never more. 

'Ihe people saying, " She hath a deeper heart than 
mine," 

Only loving her in early youth, to see her swift de- 
cline. 

Her comrades gathering solemn, like buds ripening to 
the rose, 

O'er this form of a withered lily, drooping in the New 
Year's snows. 

And now one golden ringlet Muttering in the bitter 
cold, 

Holds a tear-drop streaming downward to her gar- 
ments fold. 

Oh, the cold, deceiving New Year, darker than an 

angry storm ! — 
Oh, fair young girl, — darling — darling — of a warmer 

clime ! 
Tears shed in this bitter morning, are foregleams of a 

happier time. 
Tears, fond tears ! — oh, forever hallowed, forever 

ever more, — 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 75 

But I hear the gloomy crape low rustle on the mansion 

door. 
C)ne by one, with solemn paces, leaving slow that iron 

gate, 
The mournful company departed, and still she slept in 

state. 

Oh. Irmma ! oh, my silent Irmma ! — why shoulds't 

thou, all such marble be ? 
Down in the early flowering meadow, you will never 

walk with me ! — 
But silence! — the long summers, dearest, dearest, 

will always shine this side the sea. 
And thy garden's darling roses, I shall lonely, lonely 

trim for thee ! 
Yet in the dreamy places of thy rest, when the dark is 

deep and still. 
The flowers may hear thy gentle footsteps and the 

wind will come and go at will. 

4- 

Lone shadows loved to sweetly fold, in love, around 

her. 
Lying in the sunset softly, like her days that were. 
Calm was there — and breathless, kindly nature 

deeply knows — 
Calm as in a closed cathedral holy, where an unseen 

footstep roves. 
They brought the crown of marriage, dreaming of de- 
parted hours. 
Twined them round her marble brow — the bridal 

crown of flowers. 
The queenly rose, bringing, growing where the warm 

winds blow, 
Emblems of her coming springtime, crocuses, dearest 

cups of snow. 



76 SOLOX DOGGPZTT'S ]H)EMS. 

Tenderly, tenderly, crowded they — silent — round 
the bier, 

Heaping all her marriage flowers upon her, in the eve- 
ning drear: 

And writing on her pall with lilies, the name of 
" Trinma " there, 

They heard the voices calling her across the icy air. 

So there was no cari/i/y w edding — no, none ! 
And all the doors were closed, and the dawn broke 
From twilight, early, pale, and with the snows. 

Next even lay in all its glory. 
Clear, and beyond the southern gates, 
Across one wide infinitude of sea. 
Gleamed the home of the immortals. 

" Earth is earth — the place of parting," 
Saith the New Year. He sternly wept. 
Then the Old Year with all he bore, 
That he had gathered while he staid, 
And with Irmma — the rose-bud dead — 
Sailed like a phantom through the twilight, 
Moving for the home beyond the sunset — 
Vanishing with Death and to the stars. 

Winter's white dawn will die into the deep, 
And Gemini sail again triumphant. 
Bathing in the azure depth of May : 
From June's sweet hill, dew wafted all the bloom. 
Of fragrant summer, freshening the blue sea, 
Sweetest resting o'er the grave of Irmma. 
The flowers, the grasses, ever lonely bowing, 
Will weep for her the summer's silvery dew ; 
The whippoorwill will softly come and go ; 
And there, the evening winds will ever wander. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 77 

The sun set, and left the grave in silence, 

Filling twilight with shadows infinite, 

Her unseen footsteps in a land of lovely dreams. 

And outward, from the dark and solemn deeps, 

Came up celestial voices through all the night : — 

And she will walk a Bride forever 

In garden homes of long, long love and light, 

Far in the sweet valley of Avilion. 




78 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 



LITTLE MAY 



[HERK'S lonely agony in the blast, 
The storm-wind beats my door. 
Sister, so feeling I will die, 

I almost dread the flowers once more; 
For thinking if next pleasant June 

Come not again for me, — 
When to me the hilis will fold in gloom. 

This sweetest flower will bloom for thee. 
And if, dear sister, it be true, 

And so this little flower remain. 
Remembering still, this child I know 
I shall in rapture clasp again. 

Oh, dearest of my life and heart ! 

Oh, little friend with golden hair ! 
Indeed it were so hard to part. 

She tripped into the room, so fair. 
Oh, little heart so pure and true ! 

And darling eyes of sparkling light, 
My whole soul goes out to you, 

Dear angel with the upward flight. 
And can it be that such were given. 

Too sweet of mind for earth alone .'' 
They 'light our weary steps to heaven. 

They cheer our burdened j-ears of gloom. 

Simplicity is more than fame, 

"Of such shall well great kingdoms be," 
Said one who ruled sublimity, 

And calmed the primal void of sea. 
Oh, wild, ambitions, troubled years ! 

With all the joy, and pride, and pain, 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 79 

How many heart-breaks wild with tears ! 

Who would not be a child again ? 
Ah, fair spirit, and not flesh ! 

That makes her cheeks a sweeter rose, 
Affection's warmth of soul, the blush 

A sign from God her mother knows. 

^Tis winter in our soul and hearts, 

Joy through all the household dies, 
Till her fair lip in smiling parts 

And smile those pretty eyes. 
The years are wreathed with roses, love, 

To him who knows this little child ; 
This light that comes from other suns, 

A poet's dream, this rainbow child. 
Her looks are like the freshening spring 

Warm after long cold showers, 
A sunbeam in her mother's house, 

First flower among the flowers ; 
Dear as the lilies perfect bloom. 

And beautiful as they, 
AH night a sleeping angel here, 

God's promised sign by day. 

God sowed a handful of these flowers, 

That flashed Love's starlight o'er Life's pain. 
To dally, through these morning hours, 

Only to take them up again. 
Like some bright spirit o'er my soul, 

Will she in all my grief attend.? 
And while our weary days may roll 

May Heaven guard my little friend. 
And if her life be drenched with tears, 

And Care press on his iron mail, 
God's promise doth not fail in years 

When loud the angry storms prevail. 



8o SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 



THE WEDDING. 



hT was the Bridegroom won our prize of Summer, 
v And loved in joy our perfect flower. 

That smile that glanced from deep blue eyes 
delighted. 
Till Spring foretold the tiridal hour. 



Damps of disease did pale those lips departed. 

And closed those sweetest eyes in night. 
As balms that rest o'er fields of evening gold at harvest, 

Repose came o'er her days of light. 

3- 

The Bridegroom came and took the child forever, 

And our mother wept aloud. 
One grey, drear morning, cold with windy voices, 

They laid her in her snow-white shroud. 

4- 

That night an angel went away from trial. 

And her Bridegroom's name was " Death," 

She left us as the peaceful suns of Summer, 
(to down with evening's calmest breath. 



On earth no more shall we behold our bride in beauty, 
But clasp her in the silence of our love. 

Where she, a dear and holy angel smiles triumphant. 
In more expansive homes above ; 



I 



SOLO?^ DOGGETT'S POEMS. 



8 1 



6. 
And in the long days of deep, untold aftection, 

We, wandering on the far-off happy shore, - 
Shall raise no more the solemn lamentation, 

Beholding her in some sweet, brighter hour. 




SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 



BALLAD. 

BOSTON r.ELLS. 

CROSS the isles that skirt the deep 
1^ Of my fair azure, Boston bay, 

1 hear their sensuous voices sweep,. 
Voices sweet, 
At this still close of summer clay. 
Sound nightly, o'er the dreamy shore, 
in echoes far, o'er hill and fells. 
So calm, when 1 shall weep no more ! 
\A'eep no more, 
* O ! quaint and dear old Hoston hells. 

In years gone by, their midnight tone. 

When rose the gentle sound 1 lo\e. 
Awoke my slumber in the gloom. 
In the gloom, 

Like some known whisper from above : 
And once our country wept — and battle's call 

Did waft at morn across our dells ; 
We heard their deep, wild music fall. 
Wild music fall, 

Our loved and best old Boston hells. 

Within the parlor lit and bright 
Of golden feast they once did tell, 

The bride and groom about the lights ; 
About the lights. 
They rang as happy marriage bells. 

Those bridal morns, those funeral hours. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POKMS. 8j 

Fade low as clouds along the hills. 
Our friendships waste like summer flowers, 
Like summer flowers, 
But still ring on, yon Boston bells. 

At eve sighs Arlington's sweet chimes 

And once on wings of midnight cloud, 
The Old South, mournful beating time, 
Beating time. 

Back to old Brattle answered loud. 
Oh, now I hear those bells of yore ; 

My boyhood days to me they tell — 
They say that youth will come no more, 
Will come no more, 

But long will ring old Boston bells. 




SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 



UNSEEN FOOTSTEPS 

IN rilK OLD WOODS. 



O GAIN the day is sweet, 
^^ Again the summer calls, 

And to the deep, wild wood 
I pass the wattled walls. 
Oh, vacant years have fled and gone 

Since Emma was a bride 
And trod where all this place did bloom, 
% Down by this sunny side. 
These high trees echoed to her laugh. 

And every bird sang sweet; 
Or when she stepped the garden path, 

The deer was not more fleet. 
I saw her early ere she was 

A dear and fairy bride, 
And heard her little feet so soft. 

Along the grasses glide. 
What do these wild-lands whisper now ? 

" 'Twas twenty years ago. 
She happy came and went by us, 

And sung us all she knew." 
And so the full air even spoke, 

And hinted where she went ; 
For I had but a young heart then, 

And knew what love-dreams meant. 
And these flowers laughed out : "She was sweet," 

This streamlet laughed with her ; 



I 




She bi'0Ui2;lit her h)ve(l "uitar, s;niLr to our shiiiiii>: star 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 85 

Oh, every bird that I should meet, 

Sang : "Fair her tresses were." 
The trees have grown a little since, 

Or lost their early grace. 
For oh, indeed, I think they miss 

Her dear and happy face ! 
She plucked red roses many a time — 

Of her they were a part : 
Oh, happy flowers ; indeed they were, 

To sleep so near her heart. 
Because they missed her — they too, died, 

Felt not her fingers press 
Their downy robes, at eve, and dawn. 

Or knew her soft caress. 



Her "Unseen Footstep" seems so near, 

The brooklet babbles well to me, 

And makes me think of her ; 
For in the dry and heated noon, 

She came where lilies were ; 
And letting fall a robe or two, 

All heedless by the stream, 
Unrobed a fair and dimpled arm, 

Kissed by a lone sunbeam. 
More careless still a shoulder white, 

And further down and more 
Peeped out, and dashed by flitting light 

Through branches hanging o'er. 
And gathering up with flowers her skirts, 

Sly-standing in the stream, 
The sun laughed through the lily leaves, 

Two perfect ankles gleamed. 
And then she stood, and let the trout, 

Soft-tickle at her feet. 



86 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 

While down her sunny hair would roll, 

And all the lilies meet. 
Ah, then she looked, and saw herself 

Reflected in the tide, 
Oh, then indeed she was a sylph, 

Of happy Sunny Side ! 
The green bank dearer grew to me, 

I, thinking how she stood, 
A lily of the lily flowers ; 

The maidie of the wood. 
And I asked me even all I dared ; 

How did the sky look through ? 
How bound she up her golden hair ? 

How smiled her eyes of blue ? — 
There underneath the leaves of June, 

She seemed a poet's thought, 
When spirit wanders in a dream. 

In golden rapture wrought; 
Or like some unknown morning star, 

And undiscovered here, 
Some sweet ideal far away. 

In poesy's sunny year; 
As if could grow another flower, 

Embracing all in one, 
A world within itself, a power 

In silent sweetness born ! 



The white pine's little winged leaves 
Would stray to kiss her there. 

Would lose themselves like spirits light, 
Then fly away in air. 

Indeed the seeds were hearts, for near, 
Has sprung the sighing pine, 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 87 

With top, a robe of darkness drear, 

To weep for her dechne. 
Or then, one httle fortuned seed, 

That Ht, — 'tis hard to tell, 
Hath flown away to other woods, 

Where they in glory dwell. 
But then, their secret well they keep, 

And tell me not of her. 
They are caressed by nature's winds 

That tease the sturdy fir • — ■ 
Just as she could haunt the glen 

Or graceful, through it glide ; 
Or sing the songs that once have been, 

When she sat by my side. 



'Twas once — a lone, low shaded eve, 

She brought her loved guitar. 
And from the web her heart could weave. 

Sang to one shining star. 
And the far-off orbs would seem to dip 

Come near her happy eyes ; 
So sweet she was they touched her lip 

As light on water dies. 
The birds within the maple wood 

That night fell not asleep. 
And nature kept the happy mood 

To hear her numbers deep : 
And now, O heart ! — these murmuring leaves. 

Repeat them in their song, 
For she did charm the mountain breeze, 

Remembering her so long. 
And can I ever full forget, 

The eve I heard — that hour > 



88 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 

The voice that died on that fair lip, 

Re-echoed down the shore. 
And in the yonder dark pine grove — 

I seem to hear her there ! — 
Or through the depth her shadow move, 

Light " footsteps " beat the air. 
But I am waking from my dream. 

Oh all the woods reply 
And whisper, when I call her name ! 

"I in the wood-land lie" ! - 
And on the hill, and to the stars. 

The wild winds say : " She died" — 
And all her Spirit from afar 

Dreams over Sunny Side. 
It comes and goes at later eve. 

At morn amid the grass 
The pressure on the lilies tell 

Where little feet have passed. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 89 



THOUGHTS FROM THE STARS. 

A WALK BY THE RIVER. 



BLOW winds of evening, softly blow ! 
And gently press my beating brows : 
Sweet o'er the dusk, deep music flows, 
And calmly clear the echoes rove. 

Through crimson bars the shadows dream ; 
And on the air sound evening bells ; 
The soothing story sweetly knells ; 
The heron calls adown the stream. 

When darkness sheds her mantle down, 
God skirts with myriad stars the deep ; 
Supremest hour when soul may wake. 
Beholding then immortal morn. 

And darkly looms the distant hill, 
An altar shadowed by the night, 
My soul remounts to higher height, 
The stars are guardians of my will. 

They lead me to that silent shore. 
Up all the steps of tangled light. 
Amid the nebulae of night, 
Where kindest friends have gone before. 

Roll on, into thy deep, bright stars ! 
Ye linger on the verge of dawn, 
Where souls, so shortly, wdll return 
When Death the Golden-gate unbars. 



9o: SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 

Knowing thy centuries of light; 
What is the little life we claim ? 
Oh, let my earthly dreamings wane : 
I rest, and drink the airs of night ! 
'Tis hard to sing the best I feel, 
Yet if their light, not all shall fail, 
What life, what hope beyond the vail, 
Beyond the darkest deeps revealed. 



Beautiful river. Down thy shore, 

I hear the lulling of the wave, 

Low lisping by the silent sail, 

And in my spirit quiet more. 

Like Love, the stars smile out through tears. 

Deep calm ! — they unmolested shine; 

So rest in Faith, Oh heart of mine ! 

Abide in all these troubled years. 

Art thou, fair star, some dearest friend, 

Gone from me in the lucid light? 

Immortal in the spirit's flight 

That on my lingering life attends ? 

For through my wandering days with griefs, 

I long to know one soothing tone. 

Some foregleam from immortal Home ; 

Those wild eyes calm on raving deeps. 

Beautiful fields of living light ! 

Oh, for the red of lurid Mars ! 

Oh, for the glow of northern stars ! 

1 love in their golden flight. 

It is the star of ceaseless Love, 

As she rolls in the rosy w-est, 

This light of night I cherish best. 

She lives forever above. 



Z'^ 






7V^V= 



I ^ 



III k 












X*it^ 



"iVO^Vt 



l^:^^' 







-■'-'; 



'-^-fr^:--^' ^ 



Uiic UH.ie row. but ..nr. Sailing .lown the liv.T some l.n,i>lit 
unclouded iiiiiiii. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 91 



FIFTY YEARS. 

AN HOUR AFTER THE GOLDEN WEDDING. 
I. 

[HE guests have all departed ; 
They have all gone home. 
The sweet, the sad, the tender hearted, 
Again have left us here alone. 
The floors are still along the hall-way, 

The sickle moon is gold; 
Oh, come to the silence of the pathway. 

The places sweet of old. 
Just like a dream of Twilight, 
These fifty years went by; 
But left us still two happy dreamers, 
Dearest — you and I. 

These solemn shadows in the lindens, 

Seem very sweet to me ; 
They rest in silence in the evening. 

Where once I sat with thee. 
Come again down by the gateway. 

And let me speak with thee ; 
Come love, dream by the lindens, 

Oh come, and walk with me. 
Ah ! long ago — so long — we wandered, 

Only fifty years. Love — 'tis true. 
Came we through the dreamy shadows, 

Still my dearest — I and you. 

The trees have grown a little gnarly. 
Soon doff their summer green — 



92 SOLON DOGGKTT'S POEMS. 

Oh! is it so with you and I, Lo\e ? 

Compared with days that once have been. 
I know our locks have changed to silver, 

And many a year seems sad, 
But the same love — sings on yon river, 

As when I was a heedless lad. 
These dreamy shadows in the lindens, 

Are soft as ever now ; 
'Tis only o'er a weary, weary river, 

In life we wandered through. 

O, take my hand — my darling ! 

'Twas many a year ago, 
I clasped it in these silent lindens. 

Those years of joy and woe. 
And there is Willie, and little Mary, 

Where indeed are they ? 
O, are they under sweeter lindens. 

Where sunny seasons play 1 
And the old farm, on the hill - — dearest. 

Where the wild winds blew — 
Where is the little pleasant chamber. 

That once was dear to you ? 

1 know my hair is touched with silver, 

But not my heart is old — 
Though we are sitting by the river, 

That sings so sweet to you. 
Yes — oft remember — that sweet summer, 

O long — how long ago ? 
I came down by these lindens. 

To take you out to row. 
And now I see a smile ; a dimple, 

Yet graced with deepened years ; 
And a heart more sweet, my Hattie, 

Reflected through the tears. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 93 

And not a life of silent sadness. 

Has made them bitter tears, 
Yet they are growing sweeter, 

Through all the burdened years : 
Ah ! but when 1 came to row you, Hattie, 

You know you would not go, 
'Tis strange — 'tis very strange — i thinking ; 

You brought me waste and woe. 
" All this labor for my pains " I saying, 

While the west winds murmured low ; 
For indeed you looked so beautiful, 

When I came to take you out to row. 



Then 1 homeward went and pondered. 

Oh, what shall come of this ? 
And I watched you in the dusk of evening 

Shall then I have my wish ? 
I saw you in the pleasant meadows. 

Pluck the daisy-stars of white ; 
I watched you by the babbling river, 

And thought you was the light. 
I saw you by your father's doorway. 

Sit like a little queen ; 
The glory mid my heart's forebodings, 

The gleam across a gleam. 

And early spring was there in glory. 

And there in youth you grew, 
A violet of all the violets. 

Thy dress a finer blue. 
And did I e'er forget you, Hattie ? 

Or liquid bird-like song ! 
That trilled like all the rushing river, 

So joyously along : 



94 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 

And the laughter of that water 

Sweet-dreaming to the day — 
I can hear it in my ears forever, 

Echoing with thy song away. 
A flush upon the cheek of morning, 

Was not so deep as thine ; 
The glow that soothed the light of evening 

Was not so clear or fine. 
I wished I was the happy squirrel, 

That seemed not scared of thee. 
For tenderness was thine, my love, indeed. 

For he would flee from me. 
But ah ! - — ^ Another evening wandered, 

From all the summer dropt — 
The happiest gold of any season. 

That fell to human lot. 

Yes — in one twilight — soft and sweetly, 

You came too near the stream, 
And trod all gently in the purple. 

You seemed so like a queen. 
There is the same old boat, dearest — 

Yonder in the stream 
In the same old joyous river : 

It there for years hath been. 
'I'is brown now, old, yes — and hallowed, 

Re-mended o'er and o'er. 
Set about with the sweetest lilies, 

That water ever bore. 

Don't you remember, that dear evening ? 

Oh, beautiful you stood ! 
The glory of my youthful dreaming. 

Within this linden wood. 
And here — this same spot by the river 

I teased you by these trees — 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 95 

Only fifty years ago, you smiling, 

Blushing to the breeze. 
And then just by these same old lindens, 

I asked you, " Would you go .? " 
And then down the rolling river, 

I took you out to row. 

3 
These dreamy shadows in the lindens. 

Seem very sweet to me ; 
I rest in silence in the evening. 

You sitting here with me. 
Oh, Love so true, and yet forever ! 

Can it e'er decline ? 
As we have watched yon darling river. 

For fifty years of time. 
Oh, the jingle of the wealth of millions, 

Is never like to this. 
To sit together in the dear old places, 
Looking down along the mist ; 

The span of fifty years of sweetness, 

Unbroken in the trust ; 
But clouded here and there a little. 

By tears — yet grief is just. 
Look through our life, my dearest ! 

One more row — but one ! 
Sailing/r^w these pleasant lindens, 

Some calm, unclouded morn. 
And when the fields are ripe and golden, 

And the boat has gone adrift, 
We will look back upon the river, 

A smile through sunny mist. 



t)0 SOLOX DOGGKTT'S TOEMS. 



A\'I1.I().\ i;V THK SAC'O RIVER. 



fHE Saco, sounding, ceaseless rolls 
For many a sunny mile below. 
Glowing o'er the gleaming stones, 

Whose bubbles, beating, break and go, 

Or further down between the isles 

Smiles onward through sweet siher song, 

Or laughs by Conway's intervals, 
By rolling knoll, and velvet lawn. 

Sweet Saco. Dancing, happy maid ! 

Fair daughter of the hills; you keep 
The secret of the everglade, 

.And know where meadow grasses weep : 

And when the summer sunlights glow- 
Around the darkened ledges there, 

Yon rest — where luscious elms throw 
Their shadows to the golden air ; 

Or when you dally round the roots, 
Dark, beneath the midnight moon, 

To you the light winds play their lutes, 
And still vour 1)anks are bright in bloom. 



Oh New England's forest paradise ! 

Tell not of old Arcadia's hills 
Where Poesy's wilder rivers rise, 

When I repose by Saco's rills. 






'X".A»{ftv- . 



^^J^MS^ 











Desiv Saco. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 97 

Dear dreamer of the mountain air ! 

When below the ledge you sleep, 
Glide on like life's calm feelings there, 

For there my senses mingling meet. 

And oft in summer suns I go, 

From the glory of the higher hills, 

Still, I find with thee no lonely woe, 
But melody of willing wills. 

Oh ! touch the meads and light 
Some weary heart before it break. 

Make music through my inner night, 
Ere blow the wilder whirlwinds bleak ! 

Here 1 love instilling quietude. 

Some murmured reasoning from the vale, 
And pausing — hear the interludes 

That rise ere downy summers fail. 

Between old Saco and the Sea 

I smile. With them I talk. 1 go. 
And find each hath a voice for me. 

Sweet solace for aP dolorous woe. 
In each when Nature speaks to me, 

I find the hour all unforlorn, 
Dear the harmonious windy tree. 

And there a solemn sweetness horn. 
And will you take this gleam away 

That floats on Conway's intervale .'' 
'J'he unenshadowed hours of day, 

A smile to li\es with faces pale! 

3* 
Green knoll that sweetly silent stands 

By the little looming spire — 
And there, loved labors of the hands. 

Still catch the jiolden tones of air : 



pS SOLON DOGGETT'S POKMS. 

Heat, sweet hearts below the ehiis ! 

Blow, cahn winds o'er Kearsarge, 
Bloom, fair flowers in gorgeous realms. 

Kiss, bright Sun, dear Saco's marge I 

Yet is left this happy place. 

And tender hearts will sweetly beat, 
And Life true Life, in glowing face 

Must bow, where balmy winds shall meet. 

Then mingle by the gliding stream. 
Home of the happy mountain winds. 

Where lights of revel-summers gleam, 
And thoughts of life take golden wings. 

And fly, and rise, ajul love, and shine, 

Till the reaper comes among the sheaves. 
Re-robes the heart a star through time 
And calms all woe, as summer robes the leaves. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 99 



CHARLIE'S LOVE. 

TOU think the grave is lonely, mother ? 
As I shall never speak! — 
I have been so good all day — mother 
I don't see why you weep. 

May said ; "We all were angels," mother. 

I am afraid to go, 
For you will weep so long — mother, 

When T am lying low. 

Put Charlie in his grave? — forever. 

Where the soft winds blow ?- 
Rut I will come and see you, mother. 

Be a little drop of dew : 

And I will Ho;ii about you ever, 

And rest upon your brow : 
Will sleep within your roses. mother, 

Kiss you as I do now. 



SOLON DOCJCJETT'S POEMS. 



LA BKLLO. 

TO IKMMA. 

J^MPASSIONED deeps of long distress! 
' Fairies from a lone ocean shell ! 

Calms when the billows lie at rest ! 

With these thine eyes most pensive dwell. 

As angel thoughts they gleam. 

And bearing radiance to my night ; 

Dancing o'er some dusky stream 

Full-winged, with sweet, pui l- sensuous light. 

In the arbor dim, star-lit, 

They look voluptuous when they love. 
1 know their little lightnings flit, 

When through the massive dark they rove. 

Quick-turned, they wake from languishment, 
Those loved, dark, sad, orbs — they throw 

Spears ; not passion shivering sent, 
Not of Melpomenes' woe. 

Stars of Urania — sigh no more ! 

For sister orbs, ecstatic fire; 
Sweet love-dewed eyes look from the shore ; 

Shine, burn, dream, flash — expire. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 



COME, OH COME! 

JRMMA ! thou art as Nature loves, 
Chastened in thy all perfect face, 
Beautiful from thy dusky groves. 

Whose mysteries hover round thy grace. 

The silent choirs of evening stars 
Look down ; or o'er the purple sea 

Grow tremulous : and the long years 

With nature, well are charmed with thee. 

I see thee, Irmma, like a dream 

At midnight, when the world is still, 

And your soft eyes reflect the stars 
You talk with in your own sweet will. 

So, dear one, all this chilling world 
Would have thee ever for its own ! — 

Rather than not feel thy love fold 
Round me, give me oblivion. 



SOLON UOGGETT'S POEMS. 



THOUGH THOU ART DEAD I FEEL THEE 
NEAR ME, IRMMA. 

§H, living Grace of Heaven and Earth ! 
Resplendent in thy holy face, 
Smiling with irradiant birth, 
I love thee ! dearest of thy race. 

Fair golden head of constant love 

With tresses dancing on the wind ; 
Oh, heart alone— but born to love. 

Sweet one on whom a life declined. 

Fading, clear gleam of holy thought 

In all passion spiritualized; 
Thou, o'er my heart, such power hath wrought, 

Gently as angel footsteps glide. 

In that fair Heaven where no woe is. 

There cometh not death-deep passion — 

Love ! thy dear heart only to miss 

On earth, were ceaseless lamentation ! 

They say that hope is written bright 

In the far, boundless blue of sky, 
Yet in thy dreamful eyes of light, 

Are deeper things that will not die ; 

And though those liquid deeps of blue 
Fade ; chilled in long oblivious night, 

I deem in them the rapture true. 

Dims never in the wild death fii<rht. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S TOEMS. 103 

I dream of thee, down by the stream, 

Who bows in beauty to the morn, 
Thou, Uly floating in a dream, 

A dawn within a happy dawn. 

You touch me not. You know me not. 

Oh, gracious head serenely bowed ! 
Soft flitting in the kish-green lot. 

With tresses golden, zephyr wooed. 

I cannot speak to break the spell, 

Nor dare not even if I could, 
Such charm thou canst with whispers tell 

To the glory of the twilight flood. 

Could life be wTapt with thee at last, 

If I might be the tender tree 
By which thy little feet hath passed 

I should not feel half worthy thee. 

Reflections, such as Nature loves, 

Grow peaceful in thy perfect face 
Beautiful from the dusky groves 

Whose mysteries hover round thy grace. 



I04 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 



THE PATH SUPREME. 

LL night no answer from my dead. 

Love's silver tongues new tones will ring, 
Though ages burn to embers cold 
Triumphant winging thought's long flight, 
Unproved that death is death and night. 
Yon orbs that roll along the deep, 
Exalted, hint eternal morn ! 
Ye too are dust that drifts afar 
From God's fast footsteps borne ! 

All night I'm watching with my dead. 
Can I follow God's footprints ? — 
She does not answer when I speak. 
Oh, what the inner selfishness, 
I nurture by pride's lurid fires, 
Wherein my vainest dream expires. 
Ha\ e 1 some secret, darkest place, 
Far in the yearning soul-life down, 
Some inward sin one dare not own ? 
A spectre, whene'er in gloomy dusk, 
I draw the curtains to retire. 
Flaunting with rolling eyes of tire .'' 
My dead tells nothing that she knows. 
Down baseness, down ! all sorrow down ! 
These night-born vapors o'er yon stars. 
Will scatter by the dawning bars. 

There comes a halo round my dead. 
What is mv conscience, in dark night ? — 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 105 

Nature answers unfolding full ! 

God's dawn rolls o'er her blessed soul, 

For her the hallowed palm-trees spread 

Their shades of fragrant nectared balm 

By tracks of summer's golden calm. 

The great clouds roll in air 

Their chariots of mellow light. 

Sweet rest. Rest, sweet in long delight ! 

The daisy looks with tender eyes ; 

No cloud upon the silver main, 

And darling nature smiles again. 

But what to us the babbling brooks 

Or use the seasons towering gold 

If Doubt and Death dwell with our soul .'' 

Her little heart will never beat. 
Can I follow God's footsteps? 
Oh, this dark loneliness my love, 
That dwells with sobs the waters make, 
With slumberous sunbeams on the lake ; 
With silver clouds of summer dawn, 
With all the floating shadows play 
That dream to lull the lucid day ; 
With winds that murmur to our hills, 
Where blue seas lift their isles of light, 
And whisper sweetness to the night. 

But she will not answer if 1 .speak. 

Oh, oh ! my loneliness of soul ; 

Like echoes to the shuddering thoughts 

In vague dim vistas under-ground. 

An icy, ghastly, dismal sound ; 

A silence, though seething streets are near, 

Though hastening hundreds come and go, 

With grating noises to and fro. 



io6 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 

Not in the crowd we tind our cheer! 
Most then the sad soul feels alone — 
And sits in silence — in what gloom ? — 
Vast visions rise in lonely hours. 
Oh, then we are just what we are ! 
While sitting lonely with our dead, 
On life's great deep, one silent star, 
God stood alone in tracks of calm, 
Ere His wandering orbs were born ; 
Truth lives, and we must die alone. 
Oh, can I follow those footsteps 
That through the dark must lead me home. 

All night I'm watching with my dead. 
Oh silent kiss ! — our hearts are wed 
To kiss forever in the dawn : 
Oh never shall we part again. 
1 see her in the Paths Supreme ! 
Soft, and soft, her step unseen — 
Sleep, sleep. Oh fair and darling head, 
Thou art but dreaming. Only Love ! 
Thou art not dead — thou art not dead. 

\\'hat is the secret she doth keep ? — 

Still she lies from head to feet. 

Her little heart will ne\ er beat. 

The room is very dark in grief, 

She hath not gentle smile, nor breath. 

But marble calm o'er her dear face at rest. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 



A LIFE IDYL. 

WHAT life's stream SAYS TO ITS IDLE LILIES. 



T% ANGUISHING Lily ! — by thee I flow, 
Iwi Lives there sweet thought in weary eyes. 

Through heavy pulses beating low 

In whispers when the twilight flies ? — 
There yet ts glory left in woe. 
For scarce my life with Fancy played, 
Before I found one pleasant dream, 
Still hither, thither vainly swayed. 
Like this fair lily in tiie stream. 
And waking I heard the noisy street, 

Compelling care that called so loud, 
And little footsteps weary beat 

Hard pavements lit from Sorrow's cloud. 
Here dashed with joy, the golden times, 

Dream-loves too beautiful to stay — 
Ah ! through the silver liquid lines, 
What means a melancholy day! 

I am Life's stream, and bounding on. 

Awake sweet morn ! — Smile happy morn ! 
Waft hither o'er Floridian seas ; 

Move dear voices, sweetly born. 
And blow fair climates to the breeze. 

My music making melodies, 
Dream o'er me till I die. 

Till tears, night long, in troubled eyes 



io8 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 

Touch me so soft, and fly. 

But ere I heard — Life's long mournful deep 

Awoke me sad to weariness — 

I found it took a greater soul 

To be content in ill success 

Than ever to succeed in all ! — 

So 1 tumble down and on, 

Troubled, worrying in distress ; 

But maiden Lily, you have known 

No cloud to dim your loveliness; 

Yet before me lies Life's boundless .sea. 

While I go bubbling on by thee. 

Retired in the sunlight of the stream. 

Dreaming thou movest to and fro, 

As though it might be always dream. 

3- 

In the dust of ivons nations sleep : 

Oh world, what silence hast thou seen I — 
There are no sad seclusions deep, 

Where God's footstep hath not been ! — 
Ere the noblest cerements grow cold. 

Comes sweet replenishing of light, 
By H im who walked the seas of old, 

The guardian of the stars of night. 
1 know Life's stream '\s part of all, 

l~ar billows wail so loud to me, 
A part of the full finished whole, 

The beautiful which is to be. 
Blush then melancholy ! sigh and l)lush I 

For sad numbers thou hast given. 
Haunt not my days and flush 

Pale cheeks fair as the tender even. 
Oh idle maiden in Life's stream 

Awake with me from all thy dream! 



SOLON DOCiGETT'S POEMS. 109 

How frail, this bubble, bound with thee 

That heaves upon this whirlpool waste ; 
How valued striving hearts and hands 

That beat at nature's temple gates. 
Look ! Nature sits with lovely eyes 

To enrich her portals with delight ! 
This life, dear heart, in beauty flies, 

Between the arches of her light. 
Come to the woodlands fair with time, 

Where the gentle waters sigh, 
And where the sweet-briers kiss the pine. 

Caress the winds, and die : 
Or when the wild bird sings his notes 

To the deepness of the dawn. 
And where the silver music floats 

So sweetly, to the breaking morn. 



Oh 1 have heard in some wild wood 

The voice of the freshening Spring ! 
And heard the dance of my gleaming flood 

Roll to the song of the rushing wind. 
1 have slept in the dingle and the grass, 

Down in the darling dell, 
And the night-winds where they gently pass, 

Have told me all our life is well. 
But yon clouds fade like things we love, 

Alas ! — gold-tipt pinnacles of air ; 
And the solid mountains rise to fall. 

Will leave no shadow there. 
And what is man, when rocks can waste 

Into the unrelenting deep .? 
Ay ! the very types of species take 

New forms, or fade in wakeless sleep ! — 



o SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 

But could I breathe my soul away, 

As sweetest summer leaves the wood, 
And never know the day I die, 

While a glory calms my blood 
With tender light that leaves the west, 
'Twere all the same, for after life is rest. 
Girl-lily looking up to me 

Life's river scarcely hath begun ! 
Unwatched, ungathered were the forms 

That stirred below the earlier sea, 
In evolution moving on, 

Great hints of what was yet to be : 
The half formed wing, wrenched from the stone, 

Perfect now in light these later years — 
What were the rudiments of man alone, 

Have grown to full life — and its tears. 
Oh, shall this wondrous working cease. 

Or shall the soul be fairer born .? 
The thousand hearts that beat so sweet 

Evolve more light, some nobler form. 



Pale mother, where thou sittest with sad eyes, 

And lookest, toward life's lonely deep — 
Dear young mother, while the daylight dies. 

Thou dreamest of thy child asleep. 
Dear little arms ! Oh cunning feet ! 

That dimple to the evening light, 
Whose innocence is rest — 'tis meet, 

The mother's eyes should weep to-night. 
For down across her heart there fall 

Gleams of his future where he lay, 
And flit grim pictures on the wall 

By little eyes that smile by day. 



SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 

What wonder dearest — I should fear 
Still doting o'er his golden hair ; — 

Oh, the long weary flowing of his years ! 
Eternal progress written there. 

And so the darling boy at first : 

Then the temptations and the doubt ; 

Then perfection and the fruit; 

Then the undying worlds of youth. 

So I hope Lily while you droop. 



To-day I passed the rose-blown fields, 

Low winding near the purple hills, 
Or where the grasses drop their seeds 

To the music of the leaping rills. 
Tall ladies of the summer fair, 

They bend to the expanding meads, 
To bugle melodies of June, 

Indeed they are but humble weeds. 
The bending grasses of the lane, 

Fair Lily, dallying repose, 
Care not even whence they came, 

Or when the brightest flower-bell goes. 
Lily-maiden, — whereso'er thou art, 

Who wanders in some early gloom ; 
Art proud, and with a lonely heart, 

Hath envy in the ever darkened room ! 
Ah poets, workers with the vaster power ! 
And they too turn cold and proud, 
Love greed and gain that call so loud. 
But I laid me in the grass and heard 
The true wind whispering by ; 
And the voices of the babblins: bird 



2 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 

Sing to the humble Howeis and J. 
Now false Girl-Lily hope with me, 
1 laugh, and would not change with thee. 



My thoughts waft downward in the .stream, 

That leaps to the dawn of day. 
My eddies touched with deeper dream, 

While I dance my hours away: 
And ministering full to me. 

The melodies of the air. 
Seem like fair forms soft chiding me, 

Wood spirits breathing there. 
But ere 1 watched the season glide, 

Blight touched the green leaf's tender wilh 
I thought how false a star was pride — 

Dear summer faded from the hills. 
Ah ! Time, and Pride — and change. 

Move on like life's triumphant flight, 
Flaunt their robes, and range, 

And mock the \ try lords of lii-ht. 



I gurgle by the beach and say ; 

Oh, love-lorn Lily like the night. 
This little orb whereon man dwells. 

This whirling dreamer in its flight. 
And God alone the sequel tells ; 

Lives of all Nature where they range! 
Great orbits darkened with a breath I — 

Oh, rather give me whirlpool change 
Than nights of blind eternal death. 

All things are made alone to change. 
The lipening of the loveliest wish; 

And life bevond the grave is chauire. 



SOLON DOGGETT'8 POEMS. 

But come Life-river streaming down, 
The golden gardens of my days, 

Dream not in ever useless gloom, 

But end in the blue, boundless Mays. 



1 have not dallied all in vain, 

Maiden Lily in my bold stream! 
You float all day in Palace Place ; 
Though emulous in paler grace. 
Upon my way I've laughing met, 

Many a fair and languid face, 
Looking down Life's pearling pool. 

Hating to run my rolling race. 
I worry o'er the stones in folly, 

Up again with stronger sense, 
Stumble with my melancholy. 

Then I leap more happy hence. 
Beautiful Lily, — on Life's stream ! 

Come laugh and dance with me. 
And while I skip along the lea, 

Come loiter in thought with me. 
I fretting, have more /a//// than thee ; 

Yet weep no more in idleness : 
1 seek the vast, the outer sea. 

But we must wait for our success. 



" Mr. Doggett besides being a poet shows a good 

deal of taste not often found in works of this kind 

(Jifted with a nature more than naturally susceptible, and fond 
of natural beauty " — Boston A<i7'ertiser. 



" Mr. Doggett has previously published ' Golden Cities,' also 
another small volume ' Tanyanika,' and the appearance of this 
fresh volume leads to the conclusion that the author's verses 
have many admirers." — Boston Herald. 



" It is quite a monument to the genius of the poet." — " Among 
them may be found many little gems " — " They are sincere and 
show individuality." — Other Papers. 



" lie sings the praises of the ocean in a way that shows the 
love he has for the ' vasty deep,' and he has also found inspira- 

ation all along the South Shore The book has found 

already no small sale." — Boston Globe. 



He has also produced other longer poems called " Immortalis," 
" The Old South Shore," " Violets and Dreams," and a few 
novels. 



